hter and falling
water, and at times the glimpse of a lithe brier-caught limb, or a ray
of sunlight trembling over bright flanks, or the white austere outline
of a childish bosom.

When she drew again the leafy curtain, and once more stepped out of the
wood, she was completely transformed.

It was the figure that had appeared to the Postmaster; the slight,
erect, graceful form of a young woman modishly attired. It was Flip,
but Flip made taller by the lengthened skirt and clinging habiliments
of fashion. Flip freckled, but, through the cunning of a relief of
yellow color in her gown, her piquant brown-shot face and eyes
brightened and intensified until she seemed like a spicy odor made
visible. I cannot affirm that the judgment of Flip's mysterious
_modiste_ was infallible, or that the taste of Mr. Lance Harriott, her
patron, was fastidious; enough that it was picturesque, and perhaps not
more glaring and extravagant than the color in which Spring herself had
once clothed the sere hillside where Flip was now seated. The phantom
mirror in the tree fork caught and held her with the sky, the green
leaves, the sunlight and all the graciousness of her surroundings, and
the wind gently tossed her hair and the gay ribbons of her gypsy hat.
Suddenly she started. Some remote sound in the trail below, inaudible
to any ear less fine than hers, arrested her breathing. She rose
swiftly and darted into cover.

Ten minutes passed. The sun was declining; the white fog was beginning
to creep over the Coast Range. From the edge of the wood Cinderella
appeared, disenchanted, and in her homespun garments. The clock had
struck--the spell was past. As she disappeared down the trail even the
magic mirror, moved by the wind, slipped from the tree-top to the
ground, and became a piece of common glass.

CHAPTER IV.

The events of the day had produced a remarkable impression on the
facial aspect of the charcoal-burning Fairley. Extraordinary processes
of thought, indicated by repeated rubbing of his forehead, had produced
a high light in the middle and a corresponding deepening of shadow at
the sides, until it bore the appearance of a perfect sphere. It was
this forehead that confronted Flip reproachfully as became a deceived
comrade, menacingly as became an outraged parent in the presence of a
third party and--a Postmaster.

"Fine doin's this, yer receivin' clandecent bundles and letters, eh?"
he began. Flip sent one swift, withering l