It was, for the moment, singularly quiet, so, that, as Lydia walked quickly along the footpath, the pleasant rustle of her progress was the only sound she heard. Under a large chestnut she paused, gathering her amber-colored draperies about her and glancing uncertainly ahead to where the path forked. She looked a yellow leaf blown by some current of the air unfelt by the rest of the forest and caught against the rough bark of the tree. After hesitating for a moment, she drifted slowly along the right-hand path, looking about her with dreamy, dazzled eyes. From time to time, she stopped and lifted her face to the light and color above her, and once she stood a long time leaning against a tree, stirring with the tip of her parasol a heap of burning maple leaves. Under her drooping hat her face was almost vacant in a wide beatitude of harmony with the spirit of day. When she walked on again it was with a lighter and lighter step, as though the silence had come to have a lovely meaning for her which she feared to disturb. The path turned sharply after passing through a thicket of ruddy brambles, and she found herself in a little clearing which the haze of the upper air descended to fill. The yellow chestnuts stood in a ring about the sunburnt grass. It was like a golden cup filled with some magic, impalpable draught. Through this she now saw a rough little house, brown as an oak leaf, with a wide veranda, under which, before a work-bench, sat Daniel Rankin. His tanned arms moved rhythmically backward and forward, but his ruddy head was high, and his eyes, roving about the leafy walls of the clearing, caught sight of Lydia as soon as she had turned the corner. She stopped short, with a startled gesture, on the edge of the woods, but remained standing quietly while Rankin sprang up from his seat and walked toward her smiling. "Oh, Miss Emery," he called welcomingly. "I didn't recognize you for a minute. Every once in a while a young lady or a child loses her way from a picnic in the woods and stumbles into my settlement. I always have to hurry to show them there's no danger of the wild man who lives in that house eating them up." He came up to her now, and put out his hand with a frank pleasure. "I wasn't afraid," said Lydia; "I was startled for a minute, but I knew right away it must be your house. You described it to me, you know." "It's very much flattered that you remember its portrait," said the owner. "Won't you honor it some more by sitting down in its veranda for a while? Or must I take you back to your picnic party at once?" Lydia moved on, looking about her at the piles of boards, half hidden by vines, at the pool of clear water welling up through white sand in front of the house, and at the low rough building, partly covered with woodbine ruby-red against the weather-beaten wood.