, curving lashes of shadowy brown.

Zeke spoke, very earnestly:

"Hit's fer good luck, Tiny--fer good luck to he'p ye while we're
apart. Mebby, hit 'll git in hits work by softenin' the hardness o'
yer gran'pap's heart agin me."

In truth, the concentration of his thought on the fragment of stone
had been enough of itself to give a talisman occult potence. That
concentration of desire for the girl's well-being was not merely of
this moment. It had been with him constantly during long hours of
tedious clambering yesterday, when he followed the channel of Garden
Creek through its tortuous course among the ravines of the Blue Ridge,
through the narrow defile of the Devil's Garden, sunless, strewn with
rubble of boulders, with a chaos of shattered rock masses--debris,
superstition said, of cataclysm--of the Crucifixion, when the mountain
crests tore themselves asunder, and cast their pinnacles into the
abyss for rage and grief. The searcher had climbed on and on, until he
reached the nook sacred to the crystals. For concerning these, also,
the superstition had its say, and told that the little pieces of
stone, with the cross marked on each, were, in fact, the miraculously
preserved tears shed by the fairies of these fastnesses in the dread
hour of the Saviour's anguish. The lover had sought long for a crystal
that should be perfect. Now that it lay within the girl's hand, he was
content of his toil. Surely, whatever the truth concerning its origin,
it was a holy thing, for the emblem it bore. It would serve to shield
her against aught evil that might threaten--even the grandfather's
enmity against him, which set a barrier between them and happiness.
The crystal would abide with her in sign of his love's endurance,
strong to save her and to cherish her against any ill. He sighed with
relief, when she raised the crystal, and dropped it within her
bosom.

Still, as always, fearful of showing emotion too openly, Zeke hastened
to introduce a new topic. He took from a pocket a book of twelve
two-cent postage stamps, to secure which he had trudged the four miles
from his mother's cabin to the Cherry Lane post-office. The book, in
its turn, was proffered to Plutina, who accepted it in mild
bewilderment.

The lover explained:

"Honey," he said, without any embarrassment over the fact, "ye knows
my ole mammy hain't edicated, an' I want ye to write for her once a
month, arter I write to tell ye whar I'll be."

The girl nodde