on informing you. A year of European
travel could not make you any more beautiful, Johnnie--or sweeter. You
may not believe me, but there's little the 'European capitals' could add
to your native bearing--you must have learned that simple dignity from
these mountains of yours. Of course, if you wanted to go for pleasure--"
His head a little on one side, he regarded her with a tender,
half-quizzical smile, hoping he had sounded the note that would bring
him swift surrender.

"It isn't altogether for myself--there are the others," Johnnie told
him, lifting honest eyes to his in the dim moonlight. "They're all I had
in the world, Gray, till you came into my life, and I must keep my own.
I belong to a people who never give up anything they love."

Stoddard dropped an arm about his beloved, and turned her that she might
face the windows of the house behind them, bending to set his cheek
against hers and direct her gaze.

"Look there," he whispered, laughingly.

She looked and saw her mother, clad in such wear as Laurella's taste
could select and Laurella's beauty make effective. The slight, dark
little woman was coming in from the dining room with her children all
about her, a noble group.

"Your mother is much more the fine lady than you'll ever be, Johnnie
Stoddard," Gray said, giving her the name that always brought the blood
to the girl's cheek and made her dumb before him. "You know your Uncle
Pros and I are warmly attached to each other.

"What is it you'd be waiting for, girl? Why, Johnnie, a man has just so
long to live on this earth, and the years in which he has loved are the
only years that count--would you be throwing one of these away? A
year--twelve months--three hundred and sixty-five days--cast to the
void. You reckless creature!"

He cupped his hands about her beautiful, fair face and lifted it,
studying it.

"Johnnie--Johnnie--Johnnie Stoddard; the one woman out of all the world
for me," he murmured, his deep voice dropping to a wooing cadence. "I
couldn't love you better--I shall never love you less. Don't let us
foolishly throw away a year out of the days which will be vouchsafed us
together. Don't do it, darling--it's folly."

Hard-pressed, Johnnie made only a sort of inarticulate response.

"Come, love, sit a moment with me, here," pleaded Gray, indicating a
small bench hidden among the evergreens and shrubs at the end of the
path. "Sit down, and let's reason this thing out."

"Reasoning w