th of the dream fire was a blaze of
sunlight that fell across it. The fire itself a charred mass of embers
upon a mound of gray ashes. Upon the hearth stood the disreputable
remnants of her sodden shoes.

For a few moments she lay still, her consciousness invaded with its
rush of memories. She felt very direfully stiff when she thought about
it, but after the first moment she did not think about it.

She sat up and looked eagerly about.

There were no shadows now; the sunlight was streaming in through the
cabin's three windows and through the door that stood open into a world
of forest green. She heard birds singing and the sound of running water.
Barry Elder was nowhere to be seen.

The cabin was one room, an amazing room, its unconcealed simplicities
blazoning themselves cheerfully in the light. There were rustic tables
and comfortable chairs; there was a couch untouched, apparently, save
that it had been denuded of the cushions that lay now about her. There
was a small black stove and pans on it and dishes on a stand. There was
a chest of drawers and along the walls were low open shelves of books,
the shelves topped with a miscellany of pipes and pictures and playing
cards.

Between two windows stood a large table buried in books and papers with
a typewriter poking its head above the confusion.

So he really was writing a play--another play. She hoped, remembering
Cousin Jim's remark, that he would not put too much Harvard in.

She got to her feet--with wincing reluctance for every muscle in her
small person made its lameness felt, and she limped when she began to
walk. The rejected pile of clothing had disappeared from her side, but
the fringed moccasins were left, and very humbly she drew them on. Her
stockings were not those in which a Santonini desires to be discovered!

Uncertainly she moved towards the door, her stiffly dried white skirt
rattling at each move. It was a battleground of a skirt where black mud
and green grass stains struggled for preeminence, and her poor middy
blouse, she thought, was in little better plight.

She had a sudden, half hysterical thought of Lucia's face, if Lucia
could see her now, and a queer little gulp of laughter caught in the
lump in her throat!

"Morning, Signorina! A merry morning to you."

Up the grassy bank before the cabin Barry Elder came swinging towards
her, a lithe figure in brown knickers and white shirt rolling loosely
open at the throat. His face was f