her, but
so awkwardly and timidly that she eluded him with ease. When she had
reached the security of the hollow tree and pulled the curtain of bark
before the narrow opening, with her eye to the interstices, she waited
his coming. He arrived breathlessly in the open space before the tree
where the bear once lay; the dazed, bewildered, and half-awed expression
of his face, as he glanced around him and through the openings of the
forest aisles, brought a faint smile to her saddened face. At last he
called in a half-embarrassed voice:--

"Miss Nellie!"

The smile faded from Teresa's cheek. Who was "Miss Nellie?" She pressed
her ear to the opening. "Miss Wynn!" the voice again called, but was
lost in the echoless woods. Devoured with a new gratuitous curiosity, in
another moment Teresa felt she would have disclosed herself at any risk,
but the stranger rose and began to retrace his steps. Long after his
tinkling spurs were lost in the distance, Teresa remained like a statue,
staring at the place where he had stood. Then she suddenly turned like
a mad woman, glanced down at the gown she was wearing, tore it from
her back as if it had been a polluted garment, and stamped upon it in
a convulsion of rage. And then, with her beautiful bare arms clasped
together over her head, she threw herself upon her couch in a tempest of
tears.

CHAPTER VI

When Miss Nellie reached the first mining extension of Indian Spring,
which surrounded it like a fosse, she descended for one instant into one
of its trenches, opened her parasol, removed her duster, hid it under a
bowlder, and with a few shivers and cat-like strokes of her soft
hands not only obliterated all material traces of the stolen cream of
Carquinez Woods, but assumed a feline demureness quite inconsistent with
any moral dereliction. Unfortunately, she forgot to remove at the same
time a certain ring from her third finger, which she had put on with her
duster and had worn at no other time. With this slight exception, the
benignant fate which always protected that young person brought her
in contact with the Burnham girls at one end of the main street as the
returning coach to Excelsior entered the other, and enabled her to take
leave of them before the coach office with a certain ostentation of
parting which struck Mr. Jack Brace, who was lingering at the doorway,
into a state of utter bewilderment.

Here was Miss Nellie Wynn, the belle of Excelsior, calm, quiet,
se