and now that there was a chance in the future for her to burn her white wings still more cruelly, she grew a shade happier. "I have business with your father which will bring me here again, perhaps this fall, in October, certainly, in the spring. What shall I bring you when I come again, Alice? You've been a kind hostess, and I owe you many happy hours. I should like to make you some trifling return." She looked up in his face sadly, thinking she should like to ask him to remember her, but she dared not trust herself. "If you will select some books--such as you think I ought to study, my father will buy them for me." "Don't you love jewelry and such pretty trifles as other girls seek after?" "I really don't know; I've no doubt I could cultivate such a liking," she replied, with some of her native archness. "I wouldn't try very hard--you're better without," he said, pressing a light kiss on her forehead; and the two went slowly home, walking more silently than was their wont. Pallas saw them, as they came up through the garden, and gave them a scrutinizing look which did not seem to be satisfactory. "Dat chile's troubles jes' began," she murmured to herself. "Ef dese yer ole arms could hide her away from ebery sorrow, Pallas would be happy. But dey can't. Things happen as sure as the worl'; and girls will be girls--it's in em; jes' as sartin as it's in eggs to be chickens, and acorns to be oaks. Hi! hi!" CHAPTER V. AN APPALLING VISITOR. One bright September day, after David Wilde had been gone about a week with his raft, a wood-cutter came to the cabin with bad news. He informed Alice that the woods were on fire two or three miles back, and that the wind was driving the fire in a broad belt of a mile wide directly toward the house; that if the wind did not subside with the setting of the sun, nothing could preserve the place from destruction by the middle of the next day. Alice had been sitting at the window, thinking how delicious that soft, dry wind was, but now she prayed with all her heart that it might speedily die. It was yet many hours to sunset; and she, with Pallas, went into the forest until they could see the fire, and were in some danger from the drifting sparks. The foresters shook their heads and told her to be prepared for the worst; Pallas groaned and prayed as if she had been at a camp-meeting; but Alice, although she trembled before the mighty power of the conflagration, endeavored not to lose her presence of mind. "I shall hope for the best," she said to the men, "but shall be prepared for the worst. Go to the mill and bring round by the river all the skiffs you can muster--there are two or three, are there not? They will be ready by evening, and if the wind does not change, or go down, by that time, we will try and save the furniture by means of the boats. Come, Pallas, let us go home and pack up the smaller things."