ered him without
hesitation.

"My name," she told him, "is Louise."

He leaned down toward her, a little puzzled.

"Louise? But your surname?"

She laughed softly. It occurred to him that nothing like her laugh had
ever been heard on that gray-walled stretch of mountain road.

"Never mind! I am traveling incognito. Who I am, or where I am
going--well, what does that matter to anybody? Perhaps I do not know
myself. You can imagine, if you like, that we came from the heart of
your hills, and that to-morrow they will open again and welcome us
back."

"I don't think there are any motor-cars in fairyland," he objected.

"We represent a new edition of fairy lore," she told him. "Modern
romance, you know, includes motor-cars and even French maids."

"All the same," he protested, with masculine bluntness, "I really don't
see how I can introduce you to my brother as 'Louise from fairyland.'"

She evaded the point.

"Tell me about your brother. Is he as tall as you, and is he younger or
older?"

"He is nearly twenty years older," her companion replied. "He is about
my height, but he stoops more than I do, and his hair is gray. I am
afraid that you may find him a little peculiar."

Her escort paused and swung open a white gate on their left-hand side.
Before them was an ascent which seemed to her, in the dim light, to be
absolutely precipitous.

"Do we have to climb up that?" she asked ruefully.

"It isn't so bad as it looks," he assured her, "and I am afraid it's the
only way up. The house is at the bend there, barely fifty yards away.
You can see a light through the trees."

"You must help me, then, please," she begged.

He stooped down toward her. She linked her fingers together through his
left arm, and, leaning a little heavily upon him, began the ascent. He
was conscious of some subtle fragrance from her clothes, a perfume
strangely different from the odor of the ghostlike flowers that bordered
the steep path up which they were climbing. Her arms, slight, warm
things though they were, and great though his own strength, felt
suddenly like a yoke. At every step he seemed to feel their weight more
insistent--a weight not physical, solely due to this rush of unexpected
emotions.

It was he now whose thoughts rushed away to that medley of hill legends
of which she had spoken. Was she indeed a creature of flesh and blood,
of the same world as the dull people among whom he lived? Then he
remembered the motor-