il the badinage left him half vexed, half
laughing, but on perfectly safe ground once more.

Indeed, they were already riding over the village bridge, and he said:
"I want to stop and see Santry's child for a moment. Will you wait?"

"Yes," she said.

So he dismounted and entered the weather-battered abode of Santry; and
she looked after him with an expression on her face that he had never
surprised there.

Meanwhile, along the gray village thoroughfare the good folk peeped out
at her where she sat her mare, unconscious, deep in maiden meditation.

She had done much for her people; she was doing much. Fiction might add
that they adored her, worshipped her very footprints!--echoes all of
ancient legends of a grateful tenantry that the New World believes in
but never saw.

After a little while Burleson emerged from Santry's house, gravely
returning the effusive adieus of the family.

"You are perfectly welcome," he said, annoyed; "it is a pleasure to be
able to do anything for children."

And as he mounted he said to Miss Elliott, "I've fixed it, I think."

"Fixed her hip?"

"No; arranged for her to go to New York. They do that sort of thing
there. I see no reason why the child should not walk."

"Oh, do you think so?" she exclaimed, softly. "You make me very happy,
Mr. Burleson."

He looked her full in the face for just the space of a second.

"And you make me happy," he said.

She laughed, apparently serene and self-possessed, and turned up the
hill, he following a fraction of a length behind.

In grassy hollows late dandelions starred the green with gold, the red
alder's scarlet berries flamed along the road-side thickets; beyond,
against the sky, acres of dead mullein stalks stood guard above the
hollow scrub.

"Do you know," she said, over her shoulder, "that there is a rose in
bloom in our garden?"

"Is there?" he asked, without surprise.

"Doesn't it astonish you?" she demanded. "Roses don't bloom up here in
October."

"Oh yes, they do," he muttered.

At the gate they dismounted, he silent, preoccupied, she uneasily alert
and outwardly very friendly.

"How warm it is!" she said; "it will be like a night in June with the
moon up--and that rose in the garden.... You say that you are coming
this evening?"

"Of course. It is your last evening."

"Our last evening," she repeated, thoughtfully.... "You said ..."

"I said that I was going South, too. I am not sure that I am going."

"I am