lf-possessed, her chaste cambric skirts and dainty shoes as fresh as
when she had left her father's house; but where was the woman of the
brown duster, and where the yellow-dressed apparition of the woods? He
was feebly repeating to himself his mental adjuration of a few hours
before when he caught her eye, and was taken with a blush and a fit
of coughing. Could he have been such an egregious fool, and was it not
plainly written on his embarrassed face for her to read?

"Are we going down together?" asked Miss Nellie with an exceptionally
gracious smile.

There was neither affectation nor coquetry in this advance. The girl
had no idea of Brace's suspicion of her, nor did any uneasy desire to
placate or deceive a possible rival of Low's prompt her graciousness.
She simply wished to shake off in this encounter the already stale
excitement of the past two hours, as she had shaken the dust of the
woods from her clothes. It was characteristic of her irresponsible
nature and transient susceptibilities that she actually enjoyed
the relief of change; more than that, I fear, she looked upon this
infidelity to a past dubious pleasure as a moral principle. A mild, open
flirtation with a recognized man like Brace, after her secret passionate
tryst with a nameless nomad like Low, was an ethical equipoise that
seemed proper to one of her religious education.

Brace was only too happy to profit by Miss Nellie's condescension; he at
once secured the seat by her side, and spent the four hours and a half
of their return journey to Excelsior in blissful but timid communion
with her. If he did not dare to confess his past suspicions, he was
equally afraid to venture upon the boldness he had premeditated a
few hours before. He was therefore obliged to take a middle course of
slightly egotistical narration of his own personal adventures, with
which he beguiled the young girl's ear. This he only departed from once,
to describe to her a valuable grizzly bearskin which he had seen that
day for sale at Indian Spring, with a view to divining her possible
acceptance of it for a "buggy robe;" and once to comment upon a ring
which she had inadvertently disclosed in pulling off her glove.

"It's only an old family keepsake," she added, with easy mendacity; and
affecting to recognize in Mr. Brace's curiosity a not unnatural excuse
for toying with her charming fingers, she hid them in chaste and
virginal seclusion in her lap, until she could recover