With the latter crowd Lyle would never mingle, much to the indignation of Maverick himself, and the chagrin of two or three would-be admirers, and not feeling at liberty to join, unasked, the group in the porch, she withdrew to her little room up-stairs, and taking from its hiding place one of the new books her friend had brought her, she was for a while unconscious of everything else. Then, as the twilight deepened, she closed the book, and having again concealed it, sat watching the stars just beginning to appear, one by one, and musing, as she often did, on her own life. Why had she not, with her passionate love of the beautiful and her thirst for knowledge, been given the birth and training, the social advantages of any one of that little group below? Or, if the fates had decreed that she must be born in such ignorance and degradation, and spend her life in such surroundings, why had they not given her a nature corresponding to her environment, as indifferent and unaspiring as that of the phlegmatic Miss Bixby? Why must she always feel as if she had been born to a better life than this, when in all probability, it must always go on in the same old routine which she hated and despised? She wondered what Jack meant by the questions he had asked her so often lately, as to where they had lived before coming to the mountains, and regarding her earliest recollections. Well, what were her earliest recollections? Something so shadowy she could not determine whether it were remembrance or imagination; but it was a vague idea of light and music and beauty; and why was it that when she heard or read of that bright life, so foreign to her, of which she had never had one glimpse, that it all seemed somehow half familiar? She did not believe she would be very awkward or out of place, if she could step for the first time into some of those bright scenes as she imagined them; why did it all seem so home-like to her? Meanwhile, the little group below were discussing the same problem that Lyle herself was trying to solve. "I cannot understand," Rutherford was saying, "how such a style of beauty, so delicate and refined you know, could ever exist in such surroundings." "She is a mystery," added Houston, "and unless I am greatly mistaken, she has a nature as sensitive and refined as her face." "You are right, Mr. Houston," replied Miss Gladden, "she possesses a refinement of nature that is wonderful; and not only that, she has a brilliant intellect if she could only have advantages, and notwithstanding all the difficulties and obstacles with which she has had to contend, she has already acquired a fair education, is remarkably well informed and a good conversationalist." A few moments later, Lyle was aroused from her revery by a familiar voice calling her, and coming down stairs, found Miss Gladden awaiting her. "You runaway!" she exclaimed, "why have you been hiding when you should have been helping me entertain the new guests?"