Courage is of the nature of an essence; one may not judge how it will pull the beam, nor is it dispensed by dry measure. Something seemingly inadequate, a breath of wind, a change of mind, or the chilling of the fervors of some futile and foolish enthusiasm, and behold the volatile element is dispersed through the air. The strain on Larrabee's nerves had been great. His sensibilities had waxed tender. He faltered before the definite bending of those delicately marked brows. "Ye air out betimes, Julia?" he ventured propitiatingly, as she stoutly maintained silence. "What be ye a-doin' of with them flowers?" "Sowin' 'em," said Julia instantly. "I expec' 'em ter bloom thar in the road ter mo' purpose 'n they ever did afore." He cast a glance of wonderment at her. But her unfriendly manner, her cold eye, disconcerted him afresh, and nullified his surprise at her words. "Air you-uns mad at me down at yer house?" he demanded eagerly. "What fur?" she asked, with a keen, belligerent look that was mightily like Cap'n Lucy. "'Bout my speakin' so free 'bout Espey, an' Cap'n Lucy not warnin' me an' my mother, knowin' him ter be sought fur murder?" "Oh!" she cried, with airy causticity. "I hed furgot it." He felt the covert fleer of this speedy dismissal. But with him pride was at a low ebb. He silently looked at her as she held a cardinal flower to her red lips, while her long-lashed blue eyes scanned the dewy bunch of jewel-weed and mountain snow and wild asters that filled her hands. The wind swayed her dark blue skirt as she stood on a great fragment of rock beside the running stream. It gave a certain volant effect to her pose, her flower-laden hands, her singular beauty; she seemed the very genius of the flowering season, its perfect personification. "Waal, I'm glad o' that," he said humbly. "I need all my friends, an' all the comfort I kin git." He paused, daunted in a measure by her unresponsiveness. But she was always silent, always undemonstrative, and perhaps her manner in this instance went for less than its worth. "Julia," he said, "I hev hed a powerful strange 'sperience lately. An' it hev cast me down mightily. Not religious,--though I expected suthin' leadin' an' speritual out'n it. I viewed a new star in the sky." She was looking at the flowers on the soggy road as if she cared for no other radiance than their gleam of earthy hue, albeit an evanescent glow.