“Oh no; I beg your pardon, but I don't. I couldn't. They don't inspire them as you do. You--you tantalize me, Cynthia; you drive me crazy with your maddening reserve--the way you have of thinking things no man could read in your face, and above it all, through it all, your wonderful beauty absolutely startles me--makes me at times unable to speak, clogs my utterance, and fires my brain. I don't know--I can't understand it, but you are in my mind all day long, and at night, after my work is over, I want to wander about your house--not with the hope of having you actually come out, you know, but to enjoy the mere fancy that you have joined me.” A reply was on her hesitating lips, but his ardor and impetuosity swept it away, and she sat with lowered lashes looking into her lap. The horse had paused to drink at a clear brook running across the road. All about grew graceful, drooping willows. It was a lonely spot, and it seemed that they were quite out of the view of all save themselves. Cynthia's pink hand lay like a shell in her lap, and he took it into his. For an instant it thrilled as if the spirit of resistance had suddenly waked in it, and then it lay passive. Floyd raised it to his lips and kissed it, once, twice, several times. He held it ecstatically in both his own, and fondled it. Then suddenly an exclamation of surprise escaped Cynthia's lips, and with her eyes glued on some object ahead, she snatched her hand away, her face hot with blushes. Following her glance, Floyd saw a man with his coat on his arm rising from the ground where he had been resting on the moss. It was Pole Baker, and with his shaggy head down, his heavy brows drawn together, he came towards them. “I was jest waitin' fer somebody to pass an' give me a match,” he said to Floyd, almost coldly, without a glance at Cynthia. “I'm dyin' to smoke this cigar.” “What are you doing out afoot?” Floyd asked, as he gave him several matches. “Oh, I'm goin' to meetin', too. I know a short foot-path through the mountains. Sally an' the chil-dem didn't want to come, an' I'd a heap ruther walk five miles than to ride ten over a road like this 'un. I'd sorter be afeard of a mettlesome hoss like that'un. Ef he was to git scared an' break an' run, neither one o' you'd escape among these cliffs an' gullies.” “Oh, I can hold him in,” Floyd said. “Well, we'd better drive on. Do you think you can get there as soon as we do, Pole?” “I won't miss it much,” said the farmer, and they saw him disappear in a shaded path leading down the mountain-side. “He puzzles me,” Floyd said, awkwardly. “For a minute I imagined he was offended at something.”