"Kind? Why, what did you expect? I knew it might hang there forever, but you would not come for it." "No, I should not have come for it," he replied, swinging the lantern against the rails with such force that the glass shattered and fell in pieces to the ground. "Why, what a shame!" said Maria; "and it is all my fault." A smile was on his face as he looked at her. "You are right--it is all your fault," he repeated, while his gaze dropped to the level of her lips and hung there for a breathless instant. With an effort she broke the spell which had fallen over her, and, turning from him, pointed to the old Blake graveyard on the little hill. "Those black cedars have tempted me for days," she said. "Will you tell me what dust they guard so faithfully?" He followed her gesture with a frown. "I will show you, if you like," he answered. "It is the only spot on earth where I may offer you hospitality." "Your people are buried there?" "For two hundred years. Will you come?" While she hesitated, he tossed the lantern over into his field and came closer to her side. "Come," he repeated gently, and at his voice a faint flush spread slowly from her throat to the loosened hair upon her forehead. The steady glow gave her face a light, a radiance, that he had never seen there until to-day. "Yes, I will come if you wish it," she responded quietly. Together they went slowly up the low, brown incline over the clods of upturned earth. When they reached the bricked-up wall, which had crumbled away in places, he climbed over into the bed of periwinkle and then held out his hands to assist her in descending. "Here, step into that hollow," he said, "and don't jump till I tell you. Ah, that's it; now, I'm ready." At his words, she made a sudden. spring forward, her dress caught on the wall, and she slipped lightly into his outstretched arms. For the half of a second he held her against his breast; then, as she released herself, he drew back and lifted his eves to meet the serene composure of her expression. He was conscious that his own face flamed red hot, but to all outward seeming she had not noticed the incident which had so moved him. The calm distinction of her bearing struck him as forcibly as it had done at their first meeting. "What a solemn place," she said, lowering her voice as she looked about her. For answer he drew aside the screening boughs of a cedar and motioned to the discoloured marble slabs strewn thickly under the trees. "Here are my people," he returned gravely. "And here is my ground." Pausing, she glanced down on his father's grave, reading with difficulty the inscription beneath the dry dust from the cedars. "He lived to be very old," she said, after a moment. "Seventy years. He lived exactly ten years too long." "Too long?" "Those last ten years wrecked him. Had he died at sixty he would have died happy."