nt a moment. "Do you think it's awful to
hate your family--not Dad, but all the rest--to want to run away, and be
yourself--be natural? Well, that's just the way I feel!"

"Is that the way you feel?" he said slowly.

She nodded, looking away.

"I want to be real, Bojo." She shuddered. "I know Dolly's
unhappy--there was some one she did care for-- I know. It must be
terrible to marry like that--terrible! It would kill me--oh, I know it!"

They were silent; come to that moment where secret carriers are near,
she still a little shy, he afraid of himself.

"We must go back now," he said after a long pause. "We must, Drina."

"Oh, must we!"

"Yes."

"Will you come out to-morrow night?"

"I don't know," he said confusedly.

He held out his hand and raised her to her feet.

"Come."

"I don't want to go back," she said, yielding reluctantly. She threw out
her arms, drawing a long breath, her head flung back in the path of the
moonbeams with the unconscious instinct of the young girl for enchanting
the male. "You don't want to go either. Now do you?"

He made no reply, fidgeting with the rope.

"Now be nice and say you don't!"

"No, I don't," he said abruptly.

"Drina?"

"Drina."

She took his arm, laughing a low, pleased laugh, quite unconscious of
all the havoc she was causing, never analyzing the moods of the night
and the soul which were stealing over her too in an uncomprehended
happiness.

"I think I could tell you anything, Bojo," she said gently. "You seem
to understand, and so much that I don't say too!"

All at once she slipped and flung back against him to avoid falling. He
held her thus--his arm around her.

"Turn your ankle? Hurt?"

"No, no--ouf!"

A galloping gust came tearing over the snow, whirling white spirals,
showering them with a myriad of tiny, pointed crystal sparks, stinging
their cheeks and blinding their eyes. With a laugh she turned her head
away and shrank up close to him, still in the protection of his arms.
The gust fled romping away and still they stood, suddenly hushed,
clinging with half-closed eyes. She sought to free herself, felt his
arms retaining her, glanced up frightened, and then yielded, swaying
against him.

[Illustration: "'Drina, dear child,' he said in a whisper"]

"Drina--dear child," he said in a whisper that was wrenched from his
soul. Such a sensation of warmth and gladness, of life and joy, entered
his being that all other thoughts disappeared