--and what do
I find?... Let me look at you."

She drew back and stood before him, shy and modest, but without a trace
of embarrassment, surely the sweetest and loveliest girl he had ever
beheld. Some remembered trace he found in her features, perhaps the
look, the shape of her eyes--all else was unfamiliar. And that all else
was a white face, blue-veined, with rich blood slowly mantling to the
broad brow, with sweet red lips haunting in their sadness, with glorious
eyes, like violets drenched in dew, shadowy, exquisite, mournful and
deep, yet radiant with beautiful light.

Neale recognized her beauty at the instant he realized her love, and
he was so utterly astounded at the one, and overwhelmed with the other,
that he was mute. A powerful reaction took place within him, so strong
that it helped to free him from the other emotions. He found his tongue
and controlled his glance.

"I took you for an Indian girl in all this buckskin," he said.

"Dress, leggings, moccasins, I made them all myself," she replied,
sweeping a swift hand from fringe to beads. "Not a single button! Oh, it
was hard--so much work! But they're more comfortable than any clothes I
ever had."

"So you've not been--altogether idle since I left?"

"Since that day," and she blushed exquisitely at the words, "I've
been doing everything under the sun except that grieving which you
disliked--everything--cooking, sewing, fishing, bathing, climbing,
riding, shooting--AND watching for you."

"That accounts," he replied, musingly.

"For what?"

"Your--your improvement. You seem happy--and well."

"Do you mean the activity accounts for that--or my watching for you?"
she queried, archly. She was quick, bright, roguish. Neale had no idea
what qualities she might have possessed before that fateful massacre,
but she was bewilderingly different from the sick-minded girl he had
tried so hard to interest and draw out of her gloom. He was so amazed,
so delighted with her, and so confused with his own peculiar state of
mind, that he could not be natural. Then his mood shifted and a little
heat at his own stupidity aroused his wits.

"Allie, I want to realize what's happened," he said. "Let's sit down
here. We sat here once before, if you remember. Slingerland can wait to
see me."

Neale's horse grazed along the green border of the brook. The water ran
with low, swift rush; there were bees humming round the autumn flowers
and a fragrance of wood-smoke waft