e with deep feeling.

"I that have done it!" repeated the girl, in consternation. "Why, how
did I do it?"

"Edith!" His words were ringingly clear. They were winged with reproof.
"Do you want me to tell you?"

"Of course I do."

"When we were alone, you led me to believe that you loved me. As soon
as you saw Sego you went right into his arms, and I was forgotten."

The lurking mirth and mischief in her face grew more perceptible each
moment, while he was certain, although he did not look in that
direction, that Sego was doing his best to smother a laugh.

"Well, what of that?" she asked, looking down from his face and toying
with a button at his waist.

"_What of that?_" he exclaimed, indignantly. "It is the meanest thing a
person could do."

The reader must be indulgent, and consider the circumstances in which
the hunter was placed. The mischievous Edith was tormenting him. How
could she, being a woman, help it?

"Don't you believe I love you?" she asked, after a moment's pause.

"Believe it? To my sorrow and mortification, _I know_ you don't."

"Lewis!"

"You love Sego, and I can be nothing to you but one of many friends,"
he added.

"Yes, dearly do I love Sego!" the maiden replied, with the old
roguishness in her eyes.

"Fudge!" he exclaimed, impatiently, and making a movement as if to move
away. "Edith"--he spoke earnestly--"I can not bear this trifling. I am
sorry you have treated me thus. I must leave you----"

"No, you must not leave me!" she as earnestly answered.

"Do you wish to keep me here longer, to mortify me?"

"I have something more to say to you."

"Say it quickly, then."

"In the first place, look straight into my eyes, as you did a few
minutes ago."

The hunter did as requested, although it was a harder task than he
suspected.

"Now," said Edith, "in the first place, _I love you_; and, in the
second place, I love him (pointing to Sego); but (here a pause) I do
not feel the same toward each of you."

"I shouldn't think you did, the way things looked in the clearing!"

Edith laughed outright, and then said:

"Lewis, let me tell you something. The man sitting there, whom you know
as Ferdinand Sego, _is my own father_!"

"Is that so?" demanded Dernor, almost springing off his seat, "Then, by
thunder, if you ain't the most noble gal in the wide creation, and I
the biggest fool."

And he embraced her, unmindful of the presence of Sego, who seemed in
danger of an epileptic