The girl clutched the window—white and with eyes lit with flashes of the weird starlight. It seemed a half hour to Solomon before he heard her give a rippling, cut-off laugh, and the dawn sprang to her cheeks as the starlight went out of her eyes. High up on the mountain she had seen what Solomon had not—a splinter of light leap out of the heart of the mountain beyond the picket lines. Solomon was still watching her—so strangely fascinated that he had not noticed the blood running down his arm. She closed the window with a happy laugh, and Solomon felt that it was now night—all around him. And so the spell of the big house was upon Solomon and he begged to stand guard next day. It was early and he stood silent before the splendor of the house, the marble steps, the big, hooded gables, then— “God! she’s comin’!” He turned—no, he was a sentinel—he could not run. She wore white—fluffy and airy in the warm June morning. Above— “Molasses candy hair,” said Solomon, licking his mouth, “an’, oh, Lord, Black-Eyed-Susan eyes!” He thought again of running. Then of the wild fawn that once ran to meet him, off in the mountain woods, so innocent that it knew not that death dwelt with man. He slipped behind a tree. Never before had he been ashamed of his bare feet. He peeped out—she was still coming—no, she had come, and he turned pale and his knees trembled, for there she stood smiling as only an angel could, and holding something out to him: “I know you must be hungry, and it is so good of you to guard our house. Now, please let me serve you your breakfast.” Off came his coon-skin cap. Her smile, her eyes made him homesick. He saw the summer lightning playing at midnight around the peaks of Tiger Head. Then tears welled which made him hate himself—him a soldier of the Tenth—and he slipped farther around the tree. She was serious instantly, and her beautiful eyes had sized him up—gratitude, homesickness, all—and when she peeped around the tree again—after awhile, and he had had time to brace himself, she laughed a musical, comrady laugh, and— “Now, please don’t be offended, for I should love so much to be your friend.” Again the homesickness. That laugh, that voice—it was the silver ripple of Telulah Falls under the white stars of the mountain. That meant home and Dinah Mariah. Trembling, dazed and choking with the swelling that made him wish to do something—to do something grand for once in his life, he tried to speak, but ended in bringing his Deckerd to present arms. She laughed, saluting him in turn with a saucy military flash of her pretty hand. “Miss—Miss”— “Nellie,” she said, sympathetically, helping him out. “Do they—breed ’em—all like you-uns down here?” She laughed and handed him the plate. Solomon knew the ham, but did not know what the rolls and the orange were. His hand touched hers—he fumbled and dropped the plate: “God, but I thort I—I teched fire!”