ay! It's so good it almost
hurts."

She raised her head from the white petticoat she was ironing, and gazed
out of the doorway and down the valley with a warm light in her eyes
and a glowing face. The snow-tipped mountains far above and away, the
fir-covered, cedar-ranged foothills, and, lower down, the wonderful
maple and ash woods, with their hundred autumn tints, all merging to one
soft, red tone, the roar of the stream tumbling down the ravine from
the heights, the air that braced the nerves--it all seemed to be part of
her, the passion of life corresponding to the passion of living in her.

After watching the scene dreamily for a moment, she turned and laid the
iron she had been using upon the hot stove near. Taking up another, she
touched it with a moistened finger to test the heat, and, leaning above
the table again, passed it over the linen for a few moments, smiling
at something that was in her mind. Presently she held the petticoat up,
turned it round, then hung it in front of her, eyeing it with critical
pleasure.

"To-morrow!" she said, nodding at it. "You won't be seen, I suppose, but
I'll know you're nice enough for a queen--and that's enough to know."

She blushed a little, as though someone had heard her words and was
looking at her, then she carefully laid the petticoat over the back of
a chair. "No queen's got one whiter, if I do say it," she continued,
tossing her head.

In that, at any rate, she was right, for the water of the mountain
springs was pure, the air was clear, and the sun was clarifying; and
little ornamented or frilled as it was, the petticoat was exquisitely
soft and delicate. It would have appealed to more eyes than a woman's.

"To-morrow!" She nodded at it again and turned again to the bright world
outside. With arms raised and hands resting against the timbers of the
doorway, she stood dreaming. A flock of pigeons passed with a whir not
far away, and skirted the woods making down the valley. She watched
their flight abstractedly, yet with a subconscious sense of pleasure.
Life--they were Life, eager, buoyant, belonging to this wild region,
where still the heart could feel so much at home, where the great world
was missed so little.

Suddenly, as she gazed, a shot rang out down the valley, and two of the
pigeons came tumbling to the ground, a stray feather floating after.
With a startled exclamation she took a step forward. Her brain became
confused and disturbed. She had look