he world. That is exactly
the kind of girl that really could die of a broken heart."

"Could she?" said Stephen.

"Now, Stephen, you know as well as I do what Honor Dooris is," said
Adelaide warmly. "She is not awakened yet, her prince has not made
himself known to her; but, when he does awaken her, she will take him up
to the seventh heaven."

"That is--if she loves him."

"She has seen so few persons; it would not be a difficult matter," said
Adelaide.

A few days later, when she told him that she was thinking of sending for
John Royce, he made no comment, although she looked at him with
undisguised wistfulness, a lingering gaze that seemed to entreat his
questions. But he would not question, and, obedient as always to his
will, she remained silent.

John Royce came. He was another cousin, but a young one, twenty-five
years old, blue-eyed and yellow-haired. He kept his yellow hair
ruthlessly short, however, and he frowned more or less over his blue
eyes, owing to much yachting and squinting ahead across the glaring
water to gain an inch's length on the next boat. He was brown and big,
with a rolling gait; the edge of a boat tilted at one hair's-breadth
from going over entirely, was his idea of a charming seat; under a tree
before a camp-fire, with something more than a suspicion of savage
animals near, his notion of a delightful bed. He did not have much money
of his own; he was going to do something for himself by and by; but
Cousin Adelaide had always petted him, and he had no objection to a hunt
among those Southern mountains. So he came.

He had met Honor almost immediately. Mrs. Kellinger was a welcome
visitor at the Eliot home; she seemed to make the whole ravine more
graceful. The Colonel's wife and all the children clustered around her
with delight every time she came, and the old Colonel himself renewed
his youth in her presence. She brought John to call upon them at once,
and she took him to the library also; she made Honor come and dine with
them at the inn. She arranged a series of excursions in a great
mountain-wagon shaped like a boat, and tilted high up behind, with a
canvas cover over a framework, like a Shaker bonnet, and drawn by six
slow-walking horses. The wagoner being a postilion, they had the wagon
to themselves; they filled the interstices with Eliot children and
baskets, and explored the wilder roads, going on foot up the steep
banks above, drinking from the ice-cold spring, looking o