At sunrise the next morning he was picking his way through the palm-like fern and thick underbrush of the pine forest, starting the hare from its form, and awakening a querulous protest from a few dissipated crows, who had evidently been making a night of it, and so came to the wooded ridge where he had once found M’liss. There he found the prostrate pine and tessellated branches, but the throne was vacant. As he drew nearer, what might have been some frightened animal started through the crackling limbs. It ran up the tossed arms of the fallen monarch, and sheltered itself in some friendly foliage. The master, reaching the old seat, found the nest still warm; looking up in the intertwining branches, he met the black eyes of the errant M’liss. They gazed at each other without speaking. She was first to break the silence. “What do you want?” she asked curtly. The master had decided on a course of action. “I want some crab apples,” he said humbly. “Shan’t have ’em! go away! Why don’t you get ’em of Clytemnerestera?” It seemed to be a relief to M’liss to express her contempt in additional syllables to that classical young woman’s already long-drawn title. “Oh, you wicked thing!” “I am hungry, Lissy. I have eaten nothing since dinner yesterday. I am famished!” and the young man, in a state of remarkable exhaustion, leaned against the tree. Melissa’s heart was touched. In the bitter days of her gypsy life she had known the sensation he so artfully simulated. Overcome by his heartbroken tone, but not entirely divested of suspicion, she said:— “Dig under the tree near the roots, and you’ll find lots: but mind you don’t tell,” for M’liss had _her_ hoards as well as the rats and squirrels. But the master of course was unable to find them, the effects of hunger probably blinding his senses. M’liss grew uneasy. At length she peered at him through the leaves in an elfish way, and questioned:— “If I come down and give you some, you’ll promise you won’t touch me?” The master promised. “Hope you’ll die if you do?” The master accepted instant dissolution as a forfeit. M’liss slid down the tree. The duties of hospitality fulfilled, she seated herself at a little distance and eyed the master with extreme caution. “Why didn’t you eat your breakfast, you bad man?” “Because I’ve run away.” “Where to?” said M’liss, her eyes twinkling. “Anywhere—anywhere, away from here!” responded that deceitful wretch with tragic wildness of demeanor. “What made you?—bad boy!” said M’liss, with a sudden respect of conventionalities, and a rare touch of tenderness in her tones. “You’d better go back where your vittals are.” “What are victuals to a wounded spirit?” asked the young man dramatically. He had reached the side of M’liss during this dialogue, and had taken her unresisting hand. He was too wise to notice his victory, however; and drawing Melissa’s note from his pocket, opened it before her.