Being by this time weary, he threw himself on his couch, and contentment began--his hot tea within reach, his door wide open to the sweetness of the day, his fire dancing and crackling with good cheer, and his book in his hand. Ah! The delicious idleness and rest! No disorders to heal--no bones to mend--no problems to solve; a little sipping of his tea--a little reading of his book--a little luxuriating in the warmth and the pleasant odor of pine boughs burning--a little dreamy revery, watching through the open door the changing lights on the hills, and listening to an occasional bird note, liquid and sweet. The hour drew near to noon and the sky lightened and a rift of deep blue stretched across the open space before him. Lazily he speculated as to how he was to get his provisions brought up to him, and when and how he might get his mail, but laughed to think how little he cared for a hundred and one things which had filled his life and dogged his days ere this. Had he reached Nirvana? Nay, he could still hunger and thirst. A footstep was heard without, and a figure appeared in his doorway, quietly standing, making no move to enter. It was Cassandra, and he was pleased. "My first visitor!" he exclaimed. "Come in, come in. I'll make a place for you to sit in a minute." He shoved the couch away from before the fire, and removing a pair of trousers and a heap of hose from one of his splint-bottomed chairs, he threw them in a corner and placed it before the hearth. "You walked, didn't you? And your feet are wet, of course. Sit here and dry them." She pushed back her sunbonnet and held out to him a quaint little basket made of willow withes, which she carried, but she took no step forward. Although her lips smiled a fleeting wraith of a smile that came and went in an instant, he thought her eyes looked troubled as she lifted them to his face. He took the basket and lifted the cover. "I brought you some pa'triges," she said simply. There lay three quail, and a large sweet potato, roasted in the ashes on their hearth as he had seen the corn pone baked the evening before, and a few round white cakes which he afterwards learned were beaten biscuit, all warm from the fire. "How am I ever to repay you people for your kindness to me?" he said. "Come in and dry your feet. Never mind the mud; see how I've tracked it in all the morning. Come." He led her to the fire, and replenished it, while she sat passively looking down on the hearth as if she scarcely heeded him. Not knowing how to talk to her, or what to do with her, he busied himself trying to bring a semblance of order to the cabin, occasionally dropping a remark to which she made no response. Then he also relapsed into silence, and the minutes dragged--age-long minutes, they seemed to him.