“Yes—yes, child! don’t bother yourself so—of course I will;” but the younger gentleman turned toward her quickly, while his face lighted up, then checked himself abruptly in what would have been an eager gesture of gratitude, and looked away without saying a word. They remained a few moments to hear that the old man had recovered, and when the messenger reported him working at his place quietly as usual, without re-entering the foundry, or waiting for their companions, the two started homeward. Helen’s reluctance to go back into the building again had been so manifest that the gentleman could hardly do otherwise. Not until the straggling little village and the smoke of the great foundry were left in the distance did she fairly draw a breath of relief, and even then they still walked on almost in silence. The day had reached its noon. On the river flowing past the lances of the sun broke into a thousand flakes of fire that followed each other over its surface in myriad ranks; and on either side, where the twisted birch reached out its branches, the waves with a grateful murmur turned up their cool white crests. There was no loud hum of grasshoppers. Hardly a leaf stirred upon the trees, hardly a bird fluttered its wings. Even the far-off mists had disappeared, and a hush was on the hills—a hush as of awe before the splendor of the sky. No wonder they spoke but little. Almost solemn was the glory of the day in its noon. Yet perhaps neither one felt this influence which rested upon the land, and subdued alike to silence the peewee and the bobolink. It may be that the girl was not wholly unconscious of the scene, but it was certainly some other influence that wrapped her companion in abstraction. He saw not even the checkered shade that fell in arch and groin upon their path. They were half-way home. Rousing himself suddenly with an effort, as if but just aware of this long abstraction, he said, for lack of any thing better,— “Miss Helen, do you like the country?” “Dearly. I love these hills and the river. The time I spend here is the happiest part of my life.” “And are you not always happy?” he inquired. “You should be.” A strange gentleness in his tone as he uttered the last words made Helen look up quickly as she answered him with a smile,— “I am. I never had a trouble in my life.” They had reached the turn where the path led up the slope from the foot of the hill. “Do not go back to the house,” he said; “let us sit down here a little while in the shade. I feel strangely oppressed, and the four walls of a room would suffocate me.” Apparently, he had uttered the last sentence involuntarily, as he took off his hat, and passed his hand several times across his forehead, for, catching his breath quickly, he added, as if by way of an apology,— “It is so much pleasanter in the open air, and I am less fortunate than you. I seldom have a chance to enjoy the country.”