The thought deepened her trouble. Coming down from the hillside, she entered a skirting of woods that ran along by the river. Here she had always found peace and some of her richest treasures of thought. Through this opaline archway she had walked with her fancies, like Saint Catherine with her lily. It was sacred to all that was sweet and deep and pure within her. “Lonely!” she whispered; “I will not be lonely. To some God gives years of happy companionship; to others but a day. Shall one complain because it has fallen to his portion to have the lesser share? I will remember my one day and be glad.” “My one day!” She caught herself at the utterance and literally started at the suggestion it offered. There was but one person whom she had seen but for a day. Could she have been thinking of him? With a flush deep as the autumn leaves she carried, she was hurrying on, when suddenly in the opening before her, a shadow fell, and a mellow voice exclaimed in her ear, “Do I meet Miss Fairchild in her native woods?” It was Clarence Ensign. The surprise was very great and it took her a moment to steady herself. She had felt so assured that she should never see him or any other of her New York friends again. Had not Cicely written that he had gone West, soon after her own departure from New York. With a deepening of his voice Mr. Ensign repeated the question. At once the day seemed to acquire all it had hitherto lacked. Looking up, she met his eye fixed admiringly upon her, and all that was merry, lightsome and gay within her, leaped at once to the surface. Ignoring his question with smiling abandon, she exclaimed, “What shall be done to the man who delights in surprises and startles timid maidens without a cause?” “He shall be held in captivity by the hand of his denouncer, until he has sued for pardon and obtained her generous forgiveness,” returned he, holding out his palm. She barely touched it with her own. “I see that your repentance is sincere, so your pardon shall be speedy,” laughed she. “Your discrimination is at fault, I never felt more impenitent in my life. I am a hardened wretch, Miss Fairchild, a hardened wretch! But you do not ask me from what corner of the earth I have come. You take me too much for granted; like the chirrup of a squirrel, let me say, or the whistle of a bullfinch. But perhaps you think I inhabit these woods?” “No; but a day like this is so full of miracles, why should we be astonished at one more! I suppose you came on the train, but should not be surprised to hear you started, like Pluto, from the earth. Anything seems possible in such a sunshine.” “You are right, and I have sprung from the earth. I have been buried five mortal months in a law-suit out west, or else I should have been here before. I hope my delay has made me none the less welcome.”