Cynthia's color flared up for a moment. Then she sedately replied, "I hev tole Jeemes Blake, and I hev tole you-uns, ez I count on livin' single." "I'll be bound ye never tole 'Vander that word!" cried the astute old woman. "Waal, waal, waal!" she continued, in exclamatory disapproval, as she leaned to the fire and scooped up a live coal into the bowl of her pipe, "a gal is a aggervatin' contrivance, ennyhow, in the world! But I jes' up an' tole Jeemes ez ye hed got ter lookin' so peaked an' mournful, like some critter ez war shot an' creepin' away ter die somewhar, an' he hedn't los' much, arter all." She puffed vigorously at her pipe; then, with a change of tone, "An' Jeemes air mighty slack-jawed ter his elders, too! He tuk me up ez sharp. He 'lowed ez he hed no fault ter find with yer looks. He said ye war pritty enough fur him. Then my dander riz, an' I spoke up, an' says, 'Mebbe so, Jeemes, mebbe so, fur ye air in no wise pritty yerself.' An' then he gin me no more of his jaw, but arter he hed sot a while longer he said, 'Far'well,' toler'ble perlite, an' put out." After a long time the snow slipped gradually from the mountain top, and the drifts in the deep abysses melted, and heavy rains came on. The mists clung, shroud-like, to Pine Mountain. The distant ranges seemed to withdraw themselves into indefinite space, and for weeks Cynthia was bereft of their familiar presence. Myriads of streamlets, channeling the gullies and swirling among the bowlders, were flowing down the steeps to join Lost Creek, on its way to its mysterious sepulchre beneath the mountains. And at last the spring opened. A vivid green tipped the sombre plumes of the pines. The dull gray mists etherealized to a silver gauze, and glistened above the mellowing landscape. The wild cherry was blooming far and near. From the summit of the mountain could be seen for many a mile the dirt-road in the valley,--a tawny streak of color on every hilltop, or winding by every fallow field and rocky slope. A wild, new hope was suddenly astir in Cynthia's heart; a new energy fired her blood. It may have been only the recuperative power of youth asserting itself. To her it was as if she had heard the voice of the Lord; and she arose and followed it. II. Following the voice of the Lord, Cynthia took her way along a sandy bridle-path that penetrates the dense forests of Pine Mountain. The soft spring wind, fluttering in beneath her sun-bonnet, found the first wild-rose blooming on her thin cheek. A new light shone like a steadfast star in her deep brown eyes. "I hev took a-holt," she said resolutely, "an' I'll never gin it up. 'Twarn't his deed, an' I'll prove that, agin his own word. I dunno how,--but I'll prove it."