r, and she was aware of a sheer
physical joy in her presence. Bo rested, but she did not rest long. She
was soon off to play with Bud. Then she coaxed the tame doe to eat
out of her hand. She dragged Helen off for wild flowers, curious and
thoughtless by turns. And at length she fell asleep, quickly, in a way
that reminded Helen of the childhood now gone forever.

Dale called them to dinner about four o'clock, as the sun was reddening
the western rampart of the park. Helen wondered where the day had gone.
The hours had flown swiftly, serenely, bringing her scarcely a thought
of her uncle or dread of her forced detention there or possible
discovery by those outlaws supposed to be hunting for her. After
she realized the passing of those hours she had an intangible and
indescribable feeling of what Dale had meant about dreaming the hours
away. The nature of Paradise Park was inimical to the kind of thought
that had habitually been hers. She found the new thought absorbing, yet
when she tried to name it she found that, after all, she had only felt.
At the meal hour she was more than usually quiet. She saw that Dale
noticed it and was trying to interest her or distract her attention. He
succeeded, but she did not choose to let him see that. She strolled
away alone to her seat under the pine. Bo passed her once, and cried,
tantalizingly:

"My, Nell, but you're growing romantic!"

Never before in Helen's life had the beauty of the evening star seemed
so exquisite or the twilight so moving and shadowy or the darkness so
charged with loneliness. It was their environment--the accompaniment of
wild wolf-mourn, of the murmuring waterfall, of this strange man of the
forest and the unfamiliar elements among which he made his home.

Next morning, her energy having returned, Helen shared Bo's lesson in
bridling and saddling her horse, and in riding. Bo, however, rode so
fast and so hard that for Helen to share her company was impossible. And
Dale, interested and amused, yet anxious, spent most of his time
with Bo. It was thus that Helen rode all over the park alone. She was
astonished at its size, when from almost any point it looked so small.
The atmosphere deceived her. How clearly she could see! And she began to
judge distance by the size of familiar things. A horse, looked at across
the longest length of the park, seemed very small indeed. Here and
there she rode upon dark, swift, little brooks, exquisitely clear and
amber-co