u remember our long talk coming from church?"

"No," said Nellie coldly, "you didn't tell me." But she was obliged to
drop her eyes before the unwavering, undeniable truthfulness of his.

"You have forgotten," he said calmly; "but it is only right you should
have your own way in disposing of a name that I have cared little for;
and as you're to have a share of it--"

"Yes, but it's getting late, and if we are not going forward--"
interrupted the girl impatiently.

"We ARE going forward," said Low imperturbably; "but I wanted to tell
you, as we were speaking on THAT subject" (Nellie looked at her watch),
"I've been offered the place of botanist and naturalist in Professor
Grant's survey of Mount Shasta, and if I take it--why, when I come back,
darling--well--"

"But you're not going just yet," broke in Nellie, with a new expression
in her face.

"No."

"Then we need not talk of it now," she said, with animation.

Her sudden vivacity relieved him. "I see what's the matter," he said
gently, looking down at her feet; "these little shoes were not made to
keep step with a moccasin. We must try another way." He stooped as if
to secure the erring buskin, but suddenly lifted her like a child to his
shoulder. "There," he continued, placing her arm round his neck, "you
are clear of the ferns and brambles now, and we can go on. Are you
comfortable?" He looked up, read her answer in her burning eyes and
the warm lips pressed to his forehead at the roots of his straight dark
hair, and again moved onward as in a mesmeric dream. But he did not
swerve from his direct course, and with a final dash through the
undergrowth parted the leafy curtain before the spring.

At first the young girl was dazzled by the strong light that came from a
rent in the interwoven arches of the wood. The breach had been caused by
the huge bulk of one of the great giants that had half fallen, and was
lying at a steep angle against one of its mightiest brethren, having
borne down a lesser tree in the arc of its downward path. Two of the
roots, as large as younger trees, tossed their blackened and bare
limbs high in the air. The spring--the insignificant cause of this vast
disruption--gurgled, flashed, and sparkled at the base; the limpid baby
fingers that had laid bare the foundations of that fallen column played
with the still clinging rootlets, laved the fractured and twisted limbs,
and, widening, filled with sleeping water the graves from which the