y, of the lady in the old
romance who was, to the desire of her lovers, as "a distant flame, a
sword afar off."

"It was here that you told me good-bye when you went off to school," he
said recklessly.

"Was it?" she asked. "I was very miserable that day and you gave me no
comfort. You didn't even come down to the road next morning to see me go
by."

"Yes, I know," he admitted.

"I thought you were asleep, and I was angry."

"No, I was not asleep. I was at work."

"But you might have come."

"Yes, I might have come," he repeated absently, and quickly corrected
himself. "No, I mean I couldn't come, of course. If you were to go away
to-morrow, I couldn't come. Something would rise and prevent. I have a
presentiment that I shall never say good-bye to you."

She dissented. "I've a feeling that I shall say 'God speed' to you when
you go off to become a great man."

"A great man? Do you mean a rich man?" he asked quickly.

"Oh, dear, yes," she mocked; "a great, gouty gentleman, who owns a
couple of railroads and wears an electric light in his shirt-front."

His lips laughed, but his eyes were grave.

"And when I came back to you with such trophies," he objected, "you
would tell me that the railroads belonged to the people and that the
electric light only served to illuminate my ugliness."

"And I should take it to wear on my forehead," she added. "What
prophetic insight!"

"But 'going off' does not always mean railroads and electric light," he
went on half seriously. "Suppose I came back poor, but honest, as they
say?"

Laughter rippled on her lips. He watched the humorous tremor of her
nostrils.

"Then I should probably kill the fatted chicken for you," she said.

There was a touch of bitterness in his answer. "Only in that case I
should stay away." As he spoke he stopped to break off a drooping branch
from a sweet-gum tree that grew near the road.

"You once called this your colour," he said quietly as he fastened the
leaves on her horse's head. "There is no tree that turns so clear and so
fiery."

Then, as she rode on with the branch waving like a banner before her, he
laughed with a keen delight in the savage brilliance.

"You remind me of--who is it?" he asked--"'_Clear as the sun and
terrible as an army with banners_.'"

Her smile was warm upon him.

"But my banners fall before the wind," she said as several loosened
leaves fluttered to the road. "So I am not terrible, after all." The
glow