To Marcella a new glow of interest was shed upon the sombre scene; often she looked up at those more open expanses, wondering where, in the vast bewilderment of the fastnesses, the stranger and his mountain guide had made their temporary home. Far away as they were, he seemed near in the definiteness of her new knowledge of him. And this she supplemented by knowledge not so definite. With this basis for speculation, her imagination constructed, with all the ease of that airy workmanship, a status for his previous life, endowed him with a series of predilections and prejudices, and many noble ideal qualities with which Rathburn might have found himself somewhat embarrassed, having had but scant experience with such fine æsthetic gear. There were circumstances connected with his recent danger which gave her an intense satisfaction,—she had requited the good deed he had done that night when he had come to her father’s aid through the storm. She had repaid the debt fourfold. She remembered, with a certain soft elation, how he had recognized the risk she had encountered, how he had esteemed it of no slight magnitude. It might have been vanity, it might have been some tenderer thrill astir, but it was sweet to her to hear again—as so easily she might, when she would—the quiver in his voice when he had declared that an angel of mercy, an angel had rescued him! Often she paused at her simple tasks to recall anew those fervent words, those earnest, swift glances, which said so much that the subtlest words might fail to convey. His gratitude held all the finest essences of the incense of flattery, and she recognized a unique delight in the fact that the words and the glances were so cleverly calculated for her alone. Always her lips curved, with that rarest relish of laughter, when it is for joy alone, unmarred by any element of scorn or ridicule, when she remembered her grandmother’s satiric flouts at his “n’angel” and subsequent speculation as to which of the mountain girls he fancied, in his sentimental folly, had any resemblance to a celestial being. These thoughts were undulled by repetition. But one afternoon, on a bleak hillside, into their midst a certain shadow fell—a shadow as gray, as chill, as prophetic, as if it were akin to the gray, chill, prophetic shadows of the day that stood, dejected, on every slope, and waited as for a doom. She had gone out to salt the sheep, and she carried a gourd of salt in her hand. Her bonnet—it was of a gay yellow calico—hung on her shoulders, the strings knotted about her neck, and her heavy, waving brown tresses falling over it almost hid its assertive color beneath their curling luxuriance. Her dress was of a more sombre tone; it had encountered disasters in its dyes, and had not withstood the test of soap and water. It was difficult to say whether the result were a darkly brownish green or a darkly greenish brown. It was not incongruous with the dulling tints of the landscape; as she stood, it