s for something precious that is fated to be wasted or misprized. At a
little movement which he made to relieve himself from a sense of
eavesdropping, she gave a start, and shut her lips upon the little cry
that would have escaped from another sort of woman.

"I didn't know you were here," she said; and she flushed with the shyness
of him which she always showed at first. She had met him already with the
rest, but they had scarcely spoken together; and he knew of the struggle
she must now be making with herself when she went on: "I didn't know you
had been called. I thought you were still sleeping."

"Yes. I seemed to sleep for centuries," said West over, "and I woke up
feeling coeval with Lion's Head. But I hope to grow younger again."

She faltered, and then she asked: "Did you see the light on it when the
sun went down?"

"I wish I hadn't. I could never get that light--even if it ever came
again."

"It's there every afternoon, when it's clear."

"I'm sorry for that; I shall have to try for it, then."

"Wasn't that what you came for?" she asked, by one of the efforts she was
making with everything she said. He could have believed he saw the pulse
throbbing in her neck. But she held herself stone-still, and he divined
her resolution to conquer herself, if she should die for it.

"Yes, I came for that," said Westover. "That's what makes it so
dismaying. If I had only happened on it, I shouldn't have been
responsible for the failure I shall make of it."

She smiled, as if she liked his lightness, but doubted if she ought. "We
don't often get Lion's Head clear of snow."

"Yes; that's another hardship," said the painter. "Everything is against
me! If we don't have a snow overnight, and a cloudy day to-morrow, I
shall be in despair."

She played with the little wheel of the wick; she looked down, and then,
with a glance flashed at him, she gasped: "I shall have to take your lamp
for the table tea is ready."

"Oh, well, if you will only take me with it. I'm frightfully hungry."

Apparently she could not say anything to that. He tried to get the lamp
to carry it out for her, but she would not let him. "It isn't heavy," she
said, and hurried out before him.

It was all nothing, but it was all very charming, and Westover was richly
content with it; and yet not content, for he felt that the pleasure of it
was not truly his, but was a moment of merely borrowed happiness.

The table was laid in the old farm-house