ered him and kindled a light in his eyes. It was the
first time Mrs. Yorke had taken in what her daughter meant by calling
him handsome.

"Why, he is quite distinguished-looking!" she thought to herself. And
she reflected what a pity it was that so good-looking a young man should
have been planted down there in that out-of-the-way pocket of the world,
and thus lost to society. She did not know that the kindling eyes
opposite her were burning with a resolve that not only Mrs. Yorke, but
the world, should know him, and that she should recognize his
superiority.

CHAPTER VIII

MR. KEITH'S IDEALS

After this it was astonishing how many excuses Gordon could find for
visiting the village. He was always wanting to consult a book in the
Doctor's library, or get something, which, indeed, meant that he wanted
to get a glimpse of a young girl with violet eyes and pink cheeks,
stretched out in a lounging-chair, picturesquely reclining amid clouds
of white pillows. Nearly always he carried with him a bunch of flowers
from Mrs. Rawson's garden, which were to make patches of pink or red or
yellow among Miss Alice's pillows, and bring a fresh light into her
eyes. And sometimes he took a basket of cherries or strawberries for
Mrs. Yorke. His friends, the Doctor and the Rawsons, began to rally him
on his new interest in the Springs.

"I see you are takin' a few nubbins for the old cow," said Squire
Rawson, one afternoon as Gordon started off, at which Gordon blushed as
red as the cherries he was carrying. It was just what he had been doing.

"Well, that is the way to ketch the calf," said the old farmer,
jovially; "but I 'low the mammy is used to pretty high feedin'." He had
seen Mrs. Yorke driving along in much richer attire than usually dazzled
the eyes of the Ridge neighborhood, and had gauged her with a
shrewd eye.

Miss Alice Yorke's sprain turned out to be less serious than had been
expected. She herself had proved a much less refractory patient than her
mother had ever known her.

It does not take two young people of opposite sexes long to overcome the
formalities which convention has fixed among their seniors, especially
when one of them has brought the other down a mountain-side in his arms.

Often, in a sheltered corner of the long verandah, Keith read to Alice
on balmy afternoons, or in the moonlit evenings sauntered with her
through the fields of their limited experience, and quoted snatches from
his chosen fa