"He isn't afraid, you see, David. How he stares at you! Does he feel it in his own little heart that you are his father? I have whispered it to him a thousand, thousand times. Sit here with him, David, and I'll make you some tea." She busied herself with the tea things--the old life beginning anew--with a new interest. "I always make it just as you taught me that first day when I came up here so choked with trouble I couldn't speak. You always brought me good, David." He saw as he watched her that some new and subtile charm had been added to her personality. Was it motherhood that had given it to her, or the long year of patient waiting and trusting; or had she passed through depths of which he as yet knew nothing, to cause this evanescent breath of pathos? He felt and knew it was all of these. What must she have endured as she wrote that letter! David fell easily and happily into his life on the mountain again--not the English lord, but the vital, human being, the man in splendid possession of himself and his impulses, holding sacred his rights as a man, not to be coerced by custom or bound by any chains save those he himself had forged to bind his heart before God. For a time he would not allow himself to think of the future, preferring to live thus with the world completely shut away. Buoyantly, jubilantly, he tramped the hills and visited the homes where he had been wont to bring help and often comforts, and found himself therein lauded and idolized as few of his station ever are. Again he was "Doctah Thryng," and the love that accompanied the title, in the hearts of those mountain people, was regal. He enjoyed his little farm, and the gathering of his first "crap," counting his bundles of fodder and his bushels of corn. Sometimes he rode with Cassandra, visiting the old haunts; at such times David insisted that the boy be left with the grandmother or that Martha should come up to mind him, that he might have his wife free and quite to himself as in their first days. But all this time, although silent about it, Cassandra kept in her heart the thought of David's real state. She felt he was playing a part to bring her joy, and was grateful, but she knew he must return to his own world and live his own life. Therefore she existed in a state of breathless suspense, to enjoy these moments to the fullest,--not to miss or mar an instant of the blessed time while it lasted. The days were flying--flying--so rapidly she dared not think, and here was splendid October trailing her wonderful draperies over the hills like a lavish princess. When would David speak? But perhaps he was waiting for her to speak first? If so, how long ought she to remain silent? Often he caught the wistful look in her eyes, and half divined the meaning. One day when they had wandered up her father's path, and the wind came in warm, soft gusts, sweeping over the miles of splendor from the sea, David drew her to him, determined to win from her a full expression.