the eyes of the world. She might meet some of her invisible admirers,
or even her companions; and, with all her erratic impulses, she was,
nevertheless, a woman, and did not entirely despise the verdict of
conventionality. She smiled sweetly, and assented; and in another moment
the two were lost in the shadows of the wood.

Like many other apparently trivial acts in an uneventful life, it was
decisive. As she expected, she met two or three of her late applauders,
whom, she fancied, looked sheepish and embarrassed; she met, also, her
companions looking for her in some alarm, who really appeared astonished
at her escort, and, she fancied, a trifle envious of her evident
success. I fear that Miss Arnot, in response to their anxious inquiries,
did not state entirely the truth, but, without actual assertion, led
them to believe that she had, at a very early stage of the proceeding,
completely subjugated this weak-minded giant, and had brought him
triumphantly to her feet. From telling this story two or three times,
she got finally to believing that she had some foundation for it, then
to a vague sort of desire that it would eventually prove to be true, and
then to an equally vague yearning to hasten that consummation. That
it would redound to any satisfaction of the "Fool" she did not stop
to doubt. That it would cure him of his folly she was quite confident.
Indeed, there are very few of us, men or women, who do not believe that
even a hopeless love for ourselves is more conducive to the salvation of
the lover than a requited affection for another.

The criticism of Five Forks was, as the reader may imagine, swift and
conclusive. When it was found out that Miss Arnot was not the "Hag"
masquerading as a young and pretty girl, to the ultimate deception of
Five Forks in general, and the "Fool" in particular, it was at once
decided that nothing but the speedy union of the "Fool" and the "pretty
school-marm" was consistent with ordinary common sense. The singular
good-fortune of Hawkins was quite in accordance with the theory of his
luck as propounded by the camp. That, after the "Hag" failed to make
her appearance, he should "strike a lead" in his own house, without the
trouble of "prospectin'," seemed to these casuists as a wonderful but
inevitable law. To add to these fateful probabilities, Miss Arnot fell,
and sprained her ankle, in the ascent of Mount Lincoln, and was confined
for some weeks to the hotel after her companio