anger--meaning ME,
if you please."

The voice appeared to come from the foliage that overhung the canyon,
and the stranger even fancied he could detect through the shimmering
leafy veil something that moved monotonously to and fro. Mystified and
impatient, he made a hurried stride forward, his foot struck a wooden
step, and the next moment the mystery was made clear. He had almost
stumbled upon the end of a long veranda that projected over the abyss
before a low, modern dwelling, till then invisible, nestling on its
very brink. The symmetrically-trimmed foliage he had noticed were the
luxuriant Madeira vines that hid the rude pillars of the veranda; the
moving object was a rocking-chair, with its back towards the intruder,
that disclosed only the brown hair above, and the white skirts and small
slippered feet below, of a seated female figure. In the mean time, a
second voice from the interior of the house had replied to the figure in
the chair, who was evidently the first speaker:--

"It must have been very funny; but as long as Jim is always bringing
somebody over from the mill, I don't see how I can go to those places.
You were lucky, my dear, to escape from the new Division Superintendent
last night; he was insufferable to Jim with his talk of his friend the
San Francisco millionaire, and to me with his cheap society airs. I do
hate a provincial fine gentleman."

The situation was becoming embarrassing to the intruder. At the
apparition of the woman, the unaffected and simple directness he had
previously shown in his equally abrupt contact with Bradley had fled
utterly; confused by the awkwardness of his arrival, and shocked at the
idea of overhearing a private conversation, he stepped hurriedly on the
veranda.

"Well? go on!" said the second voice impatiently. "Well, who else was
there? WHAT did you say? I don't hear you. What's the matter?"

The seated figure had risen from her chair, and turned a young and
pretty face somewhat superciliously towards the stranger, as she said in
a low tone to her unseen auditor, "Hush! there is somebody here."

The young man came forward with an awkwardness that was more boyish than
rustic. His embarrassment was not lessened by the simultaneous entrance
from the open door of a second woman, apparently as young as and
prettier than the first.

"I trust you'll excuse me for--for--being so wretchedly stupid," he
stammered, "but I really thought, you know, that--that--I was fol