t the man watching her and said, "Won't you build a fire?"

He gathered some wood and went into the cabin. She threw out the first
pint or so of milk, then finished milking and strained the foaming
contents of her pail into some crocks left sunning by the door, and
went into the house. She found some cornmeal and salt, and deftly
mixed the dough, and arranging the shovel in the hot ashes, set her
hoe-cake to bake. In the mean time the man had brought water from the
brook, and as the woman swung the crane over the blaze, he filled the
iron kettle hanging therefrom. There was some sour milk, and by a
mysterious process she converted it into Dutch cheese. There was some
butter and a few eggs, and she found a white cloth and spread the
table with the few poor dishes, placing the geranium in the centre. As
the water steamed and boiled, she caught up a tin canister.

"See," she said with forced gayety; "let us eat, drink, and be merry,
for there is just enough tea in the world for two people to drink
once!"

She made the beverage and poured it into the thick cups, and breaking
the yellow pone and piling it on a platter, they sat down to the
strangest meal they had ever known.

The man watched her with fascinated eyes. He had never before seen her
do anything for herself, yet she presided over the simple meal she had
prepared as graciously as over the course dinners of her chef. How
should she know how to make hoe-cake?

All through the singular feast the sparkle and play of her fancy kept
them in hysterical laughter. Afterwards, as she cleared away, the same
wild mood possessed her. The man wondered if her mind was going with
all else; but as she hung up the towel, her humor changed, and she ran
out of the cabin into the dusk as if she could not bear the simple,
homely tasks in a homeless world, the firelight and the bounds of a
dwelling when doom must be at hand. The man put a fresh log on the
fire, and covered the coals with ashes. He would have preferred to
remain there, but he knew why she was hurrying back to the
mountain-side, and he took her coat and followed her. She was standing
by the boulder, looking out over the waters with a despair on her face
that made him groan. It was so like what he felt in his heart. She
pointed weakly toward the water, but her lips formed no words.

"Yes," he answered, "it was not a dream."

Dawn found them still sitting by the boulder. The man shook her half
roughly.

"Come," he