I turned to Cale and gave him my mittened hand. He guided me well and carefully. I landed, rather to my own surprise, right side up. I was well pleased with this progress; in all conditions of my partial equilibrium, I found the sport exciting. "You don't look like the same gal I drove up from the steamboat landing thet night four months ago." He looked down at me admiringly from his great height. "Your cheeks are clear pink and white, and your eyes shine; who 'd ever think they was the faded out brown ones, with great black hollers under 'em, thet I see lookin' 'round to find out what kind of a God's country you was in?" "I like your compliments. Tell me, Cale,"--I smiled straight up into his rugged face, in order to get a look at the small keen gray eyes beneath the bushy eyebrows--"how did you come to think it was I? Tell me." The tanned cheeks above the whiskers looked suddenly rather yellow. I could n't see his mouth for the frosted beard, but I saw his eyes fill. The hand that was still holding mine to help me up the incline, tightened its clasp. He hesitated a moment before he could answer: "I did n't know, Marcia, not for plumb sure; an' yet I _felt_ sure, for you was the livin' image of Happy Morey." "Am I so very like her--in all ways?" "Like her in looks, all but the eyes; they 're different. But you ain't much like her in your ways--she was what you might call winnin'er; you have ways of your own." "Did you open the windows of your life so wide for us last night, Cale, just to entice me to fly in and find refuge with you?" "Marcia," his voice trembled slightly, "I stood it jest as long as I could. I knew _you_ did n't know me from Adam; but I felt as if I could n't live another day in the house with you, 'thout makin' myself known ter you; an' I took thet way ter do it an', meanwhile, satisfy somebody's curiosity 'bout me, fer Jamie can't be beat by any woman for _thet_. I did n't go off half-cock though, last night, you may bet your life on thet." "I know you did n't, Cale--and can't we keep this between ourselves?" "Jest as you say, Marcia. What you say ter me won't go no further. There ain't no one nigher to me than you in all this world-- "Nor than--" I began. I was about to say, "than you to me"; but I cut short the words that would have perjured the new joy in my heart. Cale apparently took no notice of the unfinished sentence. "Sometime I want ter know 'bout your life these last ten years--I can't sorter rest easy till I know." "There is so little to tell. Aunt Keziah died eight years ago; then I went down to New York to earn my living, and worked there till I came here--on a venture." "It's the best you ever made," he said emphatically. "Get sick of it there?" "Yes, I should have died if I 'd stayed in that city any longer; it was too much for me." I felt his hand grasp mine still more closely. "So 'twas, so 'twas," he said to himself; then to me: