"You are Melissa?" The stranger put out her softly gloved hand, and Melissa took it in limp, rustic acquiescence. "Mr. Sterling wished me to come,--and I wanted to come myself,--to thank you for what you did; it was very kind, and you were very brave to undertake it, and for one you scarcely knew--it was very, _very_ good of you." Melissa colored to the little ripples of vivid hair about her temples. "Is he gone away?" she asked, rubbing her hands up and down on the worn handle of the hoe. "No, but he is going this evening. Of course he could not stay. It would be very painful for him, for all of you. Is there anything he can do for you? He will be so glad if he can be of use to you in any way"-- She hesitated, watching the pained look grow in her listener's face. "Ain't he never comin' back?" asked Melissa wistfully. Annette opened her brown eyes wide, and fixed them on the girl's face. "I don't know," she faltered. "I'd like to keep his hankecher," Melissa broke out tremulously. "I hurt my arm oncet up where they was blastin', and he tied it up fer me with his hankecher. I was takin' it to 'im that Sunday. I had it all washed and done up. I'd like to keep it, though,--if you think he wouldn't care." Her eyes filled, and her voice broke treacherously. "That's all. Tell 'im good-by." Annette was gazing at her breathlessly. It came over her like a cloud, the poverty, the hopelessness, the dreariness of it all. She made a little impetuous rush forward. "Oh, yes, yes," she said eagerly, through her tears; "and he is so sorry, and he sent you these,"--she took the roses from her belt, her lover's roses, and thrust them into Melissa's nerveless grasp,--"and I--oh, _I_ shall love you always!" Then she turned, and hurried through the sun and shadow of the orchard back to the carriage. "I am ready to go now," she said, somewhat stiffly, to her father. All the way down the dusty mountain road, over which Melissa had traveled so patiently, she kept murmuring to herself, "Oh, the poor thing,--the poor, poor thing!" Some years afterwards, when Mr. Frederick Sterling's girth and dignity had noticeably increased, he saw among his wife's ornaments a gaudy trinket that brought a curious twinge of half-forgotten pain into his consciousness. He was not able to understand, nor is it likely that he will ever know, how it came there, or why there came over him at sight of it a memory of sycamores and running water, and the smell of sage and blooming buckthorn and chaparral. ALEX RANDALL'S CONVERSION. I. Mrs. Randall was piecing a quilt. She had various triangular bits of calico, in assorted colors, strung on threads, and distributed in piles on her lap. She had put on her best dress in honor of the minister's visit, which was just ended. It was a purple, seeded silk, adorned with lapels that hung in wrinkles across her flat chest, and she had spread a gingham apron carefully over her knees, to protect their iridescent splendor.