hat
way--feeling sure that if he betrayed himself in too eager haste she would
vanish. Bending forward toward his canvas, he made show of giving close
attention to his work and waited.

For some minutes, she remained concealed; singing low, as though to try
him with temptation. Then, all at once,--as the painter, with poised
brush, glanced from his canvas to the scene,--she stood in full view
beside the spring; her graceful, brown-clad figure framed by the willow's
green. Her arms were filled with wild flowers that she had gathered from
the mountainside--from nook and glade and glen.

"If you will not seek me, there is no use to hide," she called, still
holding her place on the other side of the spring, and regarding him
seriously; and the man felt under her words, and saw in her wide, blue
eyes a troubled question.

"I sought you all the way to your home," he said, gently, "but you would
not let me come near."

"I was frightened," she returned, not lowering her eyes but regarding him
steadily with that questioning appeal.

"I am sorry,"--he said,--"won't you forgive me? I will never frighten you
so again. I did not mean to do it."

"Why," she answered, "I have to forgive myself as well as you. You see, I
frightened myself quite as much as you frightened me. I can't feel that
you were really to blame--any more than I. I have tried, but I can't--so I
came back. Only, I--I must never dance for you again, must I?"

The man could not answer.

As though fully reassured, and quite satisfied to take his answer for
granted, she sprang over the tiny stream at her feet, and came to him
across the glade, holding out her arms full of blossoms. "See," she said
with a smile, "I have brought you the last one of the three gifts."
Gracefully, she knelt and placed the flowers on the ground, beside his box
of colors.

Deeply moved by her honesty and by her simple trust in him; and charmed by
the air of quiet, natural dignity with which she spoke of her gifts; the
artist tried to thank her.

"And now," he added, "the meaning--tell me the meaning of your gifts. You
promised--you remember--that you would read the pretty riddle, when you
came again."

She laughed merrily. "And haven't you guessed the meaning?" she said in
her teasing mood.

"How could I?" he retorted. "I was not schooled in your mountains, you
know. Your world up here is still a strange world to me."

Still smiling with the pleasure of her fancy, she replied,