and still at sight of them his heart did not plunge. He looked down at her with an expression in his eyes all new to them and which she could not interpret. Nevertheless it set her happy heart a-flutter. Nothing was said of the view, and with one accord they sat down on the verge of the cliff. His boots dangled over the sheer spaces a thousand feet below, but he could not repress a shiver at her attitude as she leaned over the brink of the precipice. “I wish you would move farther back from the edge,” he said, with a corrugated brow. “I am afraid you may slip over, you are so little, and”-- “That would put an e-end to the readings mighty quick,” she said, as she still leaned over to peer down at the tops of the trees in the valley, and he turned sick and dizzy at her very gesture. He hardly dared to speak lest an unconsidered word might flutter her nerves and cause her to lose her hold. She had no intention of thus teasing his vicarious fright, but drew back presently to a safe distance. “Wouldn’t it?” she asked, recurring to her remark as she executed this manœuvre. “You mean if you should slip over into this dreadful abyss? I should never, never have the heart to read another word as long as I should live!” he protested. He caught the look of exultant joy in her surprised and widely opened eyes for one moment, and then she turned them discreetly on the splendid vastness of that great landscape in its happiest mood. He realized that she had no difficulty in comprehending the obvious inference. Her experience as a rural beauty and belle heretofore had doubtless served to acquaint her with the hyperbole of a lover’s language. There were Haines and Ormsby within his own knowledge, and he could not guess how many suitors hitherto,--confound them all! he muttered as he thought of them. He had not intended to win her heart. In view of her feeling for Owen Haines he had not deemed it possible. With the suspicion, which he would fain call realization, for it had all the importunacy of hope, he experienced a rush of elation, of soft delight, which amazed him, while it almost swept him off his feet. Had not he too fallen in love during his “readings”?--for thus they both called his recitals. He knew that he had only to look into her eyes to make his heart flutter; but then it was a susceptible heart and easily stirred. She had grown dear to him in many ways, and he had learned this even when he did not dream of other result of their companionship than the broadcast impression that he lingered here for her sake. He began to strive to separate his ideal of womanhood from those merely arbitrary values which fashion and artificial life bestow. Is it a French man milliner only who establishes the criterion of beauty? He had but to glance at the face and form beside him. She was beautiful; she was good; she was of a singularly strong and individual character; her natural mind was quick and retentive and discerning, and of a remarkable aptness.