Sol joined in the laugh until his wife plucked his sleeve, and whispered something in his ear. In an instant his face became at once mysterious and demure. “I owe you an apology,” he said, turning to Rand, but in a voice ostentatiously pitched high enough for Miss Euphemia to overhear: “I see I have made a mistake. A resemblance--only a mere resemblance, as I look at you now--led me astray. Of course you don't know any young lady in the profession?” “Of course he doesn't, Sol,” said Miss Euphemia. “I could have told you that. He didn't even know ME!” The voice and mock-heroic attitude of the speaker was enough to relieve the general embarrassment with a laugh. Rand, now pleasantly conscious of only Miss Euphemia's presence, again offered the hospitality of his cabin, with the polite recognition of her friends in the sentence, “and you might as well come along too.” “But won't we incommode the lady of the house?” said Mrs. Sol politely. “What lady of the house”? said Rand almost angrily. “Why, Ruth, you know!” It was Rand's turn to become hilarious. “Ruth,” he said, “is short for Rutherford, my brother.” His laugh, however, was echoed only by Euphemia. “Then you have a brother?” said Mrs. Sol benignly. “Yes,” said Rand: “he will be here soon.” A sudden thought dropped the color from his cheek. “Look here,” he said, turning impulsively upon Sol. “I have a brother, a twin-brother. It couldn't be HIM--” Sol was conscious of a significant feminine pressure on his right arm. He was equal to the emergency. “I think not,” he said dubiously, “unless your brother's hair is much darker than yours. Yes! now I look at you, yours is brown. He has a mole on his right cheek hasn't he?” The red came quickly back to Rand's boyish face. He laughed. “No, sir: my brother's hair is, if any thing, a shade lighter than mine, and nary mole. Come along!” And leading the way, Rand disclosed the narrow steps winding down to the shelf on which the cabin hung. “Be careful,” said Rand, taking the now unresisting hand of the “Marysville Pet” as they descended: “a step that way, and down you go two thousand feet on the top of a pine-tree.” But the girl's slight cry of alarm was presently changed to one of unaffected pleasure as they stood on the rocky platform. “It isn't a house: it's a NEST, and the loveliest!” said Euphemia breathlessly. “It's a scene, a perfect scene, sir!” said Sol, enraptured. “I shall take the liberty of bringing my scene-painter to sketch it some day. It would do for 'The Mountaineer's Bride' superbly, or,” continued the little man, warming through the blue-black border of his face with professional enthusiasm, “it's enough to make a play itself. 'The Cot on the Crags.' Last scene--moonlight--the struggle on the ledge! The Lady of the Crags throws herself from the beetling heights!--A shriek from the depths--a woman's wail!”