t to efface itself, even as the land sought to aid in its
effacement, as though neither believed that this was lawful spot for it.
One might say it made a blot upon this picture of the morning.

Perhaps it seemed thus to the tall young girl who now stood upon its
long gallery, her tangle of high-rolled, red-brown hair held back by the
hand which half shaded her eyes as she looked out discontentedly over
the familiar scene. Miss Lady--for thus she was christened by the Big
House servants; and she bore well the title--frowned now as she tapped a
little foot upon the gallery floor. Perhaps it was not so much what she
saw as what she did not see that made Miss Lady discontented, for this
white rim of the forest bounded the world for her; yet after all, youth
and the morning do not conspire with discontent. A moment more, light,
fleet of foot, Miss Lady fled down the gallery steps, through the gate
and out along the garden walk. Beyond the yard fence she was greeted
riotously by a score of dogs and puppies, long since her friends and
devoted admirers; as, indeed, were all dwellers, dumb or human,
thereabout.

Had Miss Lady, or any observer, looked from the gallery off to the
southward and down the railway track, there might thus have been
discovered two figures just emerging from the rim of the forest
something like a mile away; and these might have been seen growing
slowly more distinct, as they plodded up the railway track toward the
Big House. Presently they might have been discovered to be a man and a
woman; the former tall, thin, dark and stooped; his companion, tall as
himself, quite as thin, and almost as bent. The garb of the man was
nondescript, neutral, loose; his hat dark and flapping. The woman wore a
shapeless calico gown, and on her head was a long, telescopic sunbonnet
of faded pink, from which she must perforce peer forward, looking
neither to the right nor to the left.

The travelers, indeed, needed not to look to the right or the left, for
the path of the iron rails led them directly on. They did not step to
the gallery, did not knock at the door, or, indeed, give any evidences
of their intentions, but seated themselves deliberately upon a pile of
boards that lay near in the broad expanse of the front yard. Here they
remained, silent and at rest, fitting well enough into the sleepy scene.
No one in the house noticed them for a time, and they, tired by the
walk, seemed willing to rest under the shade of th