d have been too bold a proposal.

Okoya glanced at the daughter and said timidly,--

"If you like, I shall come again to see you;" and Mitsha's face
displayed a happy smile at the words, while her mother eagerly nodded.

"Come as often as you can," she replied. "We"--emphasizing the word
strongly--"like it. It is well."

"Then I will go now," said Okoya, rising. His face was radiant. "I must
go home lest Shyuote get into more trouble. He is so mischievous and
awkward. Good-bye." He grasped the woman's hand and breathed on it; gave
a smiling look to the girl, who nodded at him with a happy face; and
returned to the roof again. Thence he climbed down to the ground. How
happy he felt! The sun seemed to shine twice as brightly as before; the
air felt purer; all around him breathed life, hope, and bliss. At the
foot of the slope he turned back once more to gaze at the house where so
much joy had come to him. A pair of lustrous eyes appeared in the little
air-hole of the wall. They were those of the maiden, which were
following him on his homeward way.

Tyope's wife was right in supposing that her daughter and Okoya were not
strangers to each other. And yet not a single word had passed between
them before beyond a casual greeting. As often as they had met he had
said "guatzena," and she had responded with "raua." But at every meeting
his voice was softer, and hers more timid and trembling. Each felt happy
at the sight of the other, but neither thought of speaking, still less
of making any advances. Okoya was aware of the fact--which he felt
deeply and keenly--that a wide breach, a seemingly impassable chasm,
existed between him and the girl. That gap was the relation in which he
stood toward Tyope, the girl's father. Or rather the relation in which
he fancied himself to stand toward him. For Tyope had hardly ever spoken
to him, still less done him any wrong. But Okoya's mother had spoken of
Tyope as a bad man, as a dangerous man, as one whom it was Okoya's duty
to avoid. And so her son feared Tyope, and dared not think of the bad
man's daughter as his future companion through life. Now everything was
changed.

Mitsha's mother had said that Tyope was a friend of his father, and that
Tyope would not be angry if Okoya came to her house. Then he was not,
after all, the fiend that Say Koitza had pictured him. On the contrary
he appeared to Okoya, since the last interview, in the light of an
important personage. Okoya's faith