d not to notice either his employment or his emotion, but soon
stole softly away again, and went weeping up to her own room.

After that he busied himself with writing a great deal, and she felt sure
that he was making arrangements for her of which he had spoken on that
stormy evening. A great dread came over her at the thought of being left
alone in the world; and yet, in spite of all, she looked forward to the
return of Mr. Heath with more of pleasure and anticipation than she had
known for many a year.

Thus more than a week went by, and one afternoon Virgie, her father being
asleep and the house oppressively still, took her book and went out to a
little nook back of her cottage, where she was in the habit of going to
study, and where Chi Lu had built a rustic seat for her beneath a great
pine tree that grew out of a cleft in the mountain.

But she could not concentrate her thoughts upon the page before her; they
went roving after a coal black steed and its handsome rider, until finally
her book dropped from her hands, her eyes fixed themselves dreamily upon
the lofty, far-off peaks of the Humboldt Mountains, and she was lost to
time and place--everything save her own delightful musings.

So absorbed was she that she was not aware of the approach of any one
until a small but exquisitely arranged bouquet of mountain flowers were
laid upon the seat beside her, and a rich but well remembered voice said:

"Pardon me, Miss Abbot, for intruding upon your solitude, but Chi Lu told
me that Mr. Abbot was resting and could not be disturbed at present, and
that I should find you here."

Virginia sprang to her feet, the tint of the wild rose in her cheeks, her
violet eyes grown black with repressed excitement.

"Mr. Heath?" she cried, her scarlet lips parting in a bewildering smile.

"Yes; forgive me for having startled you so," he said, gently, then adding
with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. "You were surely in a very brown
study."

"I am afraid I was," she returned, laughing. "But what lovely flowers!"
she continued, taking them up and bending to inhale their fragrance. "How
kind of you to gather them for me."

The young man's eyes lingered about her in a delighted gaze, for she made
the fairest picture imaginable standing there in her soft gray dress with
its collar and cuffs of black velvet, a knot of scarlet ribbon at her
throat, the brilliant flowers in her hands, and a fleecy white shawl
wrapped about her s