He sat on the grass and she read austerely, the weird heart-cry of the wind harp curving around her voice or whipping it with ravelings of sweetness. She read while the sun slipped lower and lower, and dared not look at the rapt face watching her. Then she shut the book and said with careful modulation:-- “Thank you very much for the wind harp. I shall take it home with me, and whenever it plays I shall think of you.” His grieved lip instantly smiled. “If you fasten it in your window it will play all the time!” “There is one other thing I would love to have, and that is a feather from Billy.” Jerome stretched out an arm and drew his familiar toward him. Billy twitched his short tail and curved a suspicious neck while his master stretched one glistening pinion. “Do you want his whole wing?” inquired Jerome, groping for a knife. “Not for the world!” exclaimed Miss Brooks. “Only one of dear Billy’s tiniest feathers, to put away and look at.” Jerome plucked a quill and handed it to her. “You may have him all, if you want him.” “But what would you do without Billy?” He repeated, “Do without?” several times, turning the suggestion in his mind, and gazing at her. A couple of hours later Miss Brooks said to her brother:-- “Eric, I believe I will go home at once.” “Guess not,” responded the captain. “We shift camp next week. I want you to stay until then. Aren’t you having a good time?” “I’ve been bathing too much in the river, perhaps. Mr. Marsh says it’s aguish. I shall have ague if I stay.” “The doctor is coming,” said her brother. “I must go home, Eric; indeed, I must!” “You can’t wait until Jack arrives, I suppose?” “Jack! Is Jack coming?” “We were going to surprise you; one of the men rowed to the station for him this afternoon.” Miss Brooks’s face expressed lively anticipation. “Jack is coming! Then I may run back with him to-morrow, without waiting longer for Marie.” “Don’t you want to give the poor fellow any taste of the camp?” demanded her indignant brother. The wind harp, rousing from silence, burst out again with the bars it would never finish, and meandered into saddening minors. “What machine is making that doleful sound?” Lilian turned her tragic face away. Before Jack arrived she had taken down Jerome’s offering, wrapped it carefully, and hid it in the heart of her luggage. The spirit of the Wabash gave this large and engaging young arrival its cold shoulder. Not a drop of rain had tarnished the sunshine in a month; but he reached camp in a chill drizzle. The wind became so sharp that evening fires were built. The river hissed against its banks; and the cook reported a broken trot-line, and consequent failure in the catch of fish. “This is fine!” commented Jack, turning up his collar as he smoked with the captain, and Lilian huddled to the fire. “Every letter has been full of the pleasures of camp life; and now I experience them myself!”