"Reckon ye'll come back hyar this evenin'?" queried the old mother, as he adjusted her bandages before leaving. "I'll see how the cabin feels after I have had a fire in the chimney all day." As he left, he paused by Cassandra's side. She was standing by the spout of running water waiting for her pail to fill. "If it happens that you need me for--anything at all, send Hoyle, and I'll come immediately. Will you?" She lifted her eyes to his gratefully. "Thank you," was all she said, but his look impelled more. "You are right kind," she added. Hardly satisfied, he departed, but turned in his saddle to glance back at her. She was swaying sidewise with the weight of the full pail, straining one slender arm as she bore it into the house. Who did all the work there, he wondered. That great youth ought to relieve her of such tasks. Where was he? Little did he dream that the eyes of the great youth were at that moment fixed darkly upon him from the small pane of glass set in under the cabin roof, which lighted Frale's garret room. David stabled the horse in the log shed built by Doctor Hoyle for his own beast,--for what is life in the mountains without a horse,--then lingered awhile in his doorway looking out over the billows of ranges seen dimly through the fine veil of the falling rain. Ah, wonderful, perfect world it seemed to him, seen through the veil of the rain. The fireplace in the cabin was built of rough stone, wide and high, and there he made him a brisk fire with fat pine and brushwood. He drew in great logs which he heaped on the broad stone hearth to dry. He piled them on the fire until the flames leaped and roared up the chimney, so long unused. He sat before it, delighting in it like a boy with a bonfire, and blessed his friend for sending him there, smoking a pipe in his honor. Among the doctor's few cooking utensils he found a stout iron tea-kettle and sallied out again in the wet to rinse it and fill it with fresh water from the spring. He had had only coffee since leaving Canada; now he would have a good cup of decent tea, so he hung the kettle on the crane and swung it over the fire. In his search for his tea, most of his belongings were unpacked and tossed about the room in wild disorder, and a copy of _Marius the Epicurean_ was brought to light. His kettle boiled over into the fire, and immediately the small articles on his pine table were shoved back in confusion to make room for his tea things, his bottle of milk, his corn pone, and his book.