They came at last to the one stunted apple-tree which crowned the noble crest of the mountain, with an effect as bathetic as the scalp-lock of an Indian brave. The wind screamed through the gnarled ground-kissing branches with the sound of a gale through cordage. Pokeberry squatted ignominiously in the fierce hurly, and put back her nervous ears, while Virginia swung from the saddle. Once on the ground, she found that to keep the perpendicular was a matter of some skill. She put one arm around a mass of the tangled branches and looked up at Roden with a laugh, which was seized and dashed down the steep declivity or ever it reached his ears. He in the mean time having tethered the mare securely, resumed his coat, and unbinding his covert-coat from the saddle, offered to help the girl on with it. She looked at him in evident surprise, but made no resistance. As she loosened the branches in order to put her arms into the sleeves, which were whirling wildly, with an air of reckless intoxication, a sharp gust blew her, coat and all, directly into Roden’s arms. He laughed, disentangling himself as best he might from the wet bondage of her heavy locks, but she, reddening vividly through all her clear, sun-browned skin, gave her attention to the garment that he held. It seemed to her a strange thing that he should offer to lend it. She had been on rainy expeditions with many men, both English and Virginian, while none that she could remember had ever before offered to protect her in such wise from the inclemency of her native heavens. She looked down a little consciously at the weather-stained tan-color of the little coat. She felt that it would be an insult to suggest to so mighty a pedestrian the idea of taking cold; at the same time she was afraid that such would be the memento he would bear away with him from the top of Peter’s Mountain. As for herself, she was as accustomed to wind and rain as one of the big oxeye daisies in her own fields. [Illustration: ON THE TOP OF PETER’S MOUNTAIN.] “There’s some sandwiches an’ a glass in that basket,” she said, or rather shrieked, to Roden. He went to get them, tacking through the stiff wind with much dexterity, and they partook of thin slices of Aunt Tishy’s bread and Virginian ham with a heroic disregard of the downpour. All at once they were confronted by a small ebon figure, hatless and breathless. “_Popo!_” said Miss Herrick; “what in the name o’ sense are you doin’ here?” “Oh, Miss Faginia, Miss Faginia,” howled the little black, “de lightnin’ dun gone thoo Marse Johnson’s house an’ kill he an’ he horg! An’ I wuz so skeered ’bout you I jess took out an’ run up de mounting to see ef you wuz all right.” “Well, I am,” said his mistress. “You pore little thing, how wet you are! Come and get here under these branches.”