ubtle indication in it, also, that
the shadow of some doubt had not failed to touch her either, and that
this with her was less a careless instinct than a resolved conclusion.

Elinor, in her happy good-humor, was ready for either thing: to stay in
the night splendor longer, or to go in. It ended in their going in.
Outside, the moon wheeled on in her long southerly circuit, the stars
trembled in their infinite depths, and the mountains abided in awful
might. Within was a piano tinkle of gay music, and demi-toilette, and
demi-festival,--the poor, abridged reproduction of city revelry in the
inadequate parlor of an unpretending mountain-house, on a three-ply
carpet.

Marmaduke Wharne came and looked in at the doorway. Mrs. Linceford rose
from her seat upon the sofa close by, and gave him courteous greeting.
"The season has begun early, and you seem likely to have a pleasant
summer here," she said, with the half-considered meaning of a common
fashion of speech.

"No, madam!" answered Marmaduke Wharne, out of his real thought, with a
blunt emphasis.

"You think not?" said Mrs. Linceford suavely, in a quiet amusement. "It
looks rather like it to-night."

"_This?_--It's no use for people to bring their bodies to the
mountains, if they can't bring souls in them!" And Marmaduke Wharne
turned on his heel, and, without further courtesy, strode away.

"What an old Grimgriffinhoof!" cried Jeannie under her breath; and
Elinor laughed her little musical laugh of fun.

Mrs. Linceford drew up her shawl, and sat down again, the remnant of a
well-bred smile upon her face. Leslie Goldthwaite rather wished old
Marmaduke Wharne would come back again and say more. But this first
glimpse of him was all they got to-night.

CHAPTER V.

HUMMOCKS.

"Blown crystal clear by Freedom's northern wind."

Leslie said the last line of Whittier's glorious mountain sonnet, low,
to herself, standing on the balcony again that next morning, in the
cold, clear breeze; the magnificent lines of the great earth-masses
rearing themselves before her sharply against a cloudless morning sky,
defining and revealing themselves anew.

"Freedom's northern wind will take all the wave out of your hair, and
give you a red nose!" said Jeannie, coming round from her room, and upon
Leslie unaware.

Well, Jeannie _was_ a pretty thing to look at, in her delicate blue
cambric morning dress, gracefully braided with white, with the fresh
rose of rece