d snarl, and her eyes looked out as
unabashed as a boy's. The two stared at each other for a time in
silence, and finally it was the woman who spoke first.

"This isn't exactly what I call a warm welcome--not just what the cat
led me to expect! It was really the cat who brought me--I met him over
on Slide Mountain--he fled and I pursued, and now here we are!"

She made a hasty survey of the hut, and then of its owner, putting her
head on one side as she looked about her with a quick, bird-like
movement, he still staring in stupefaction.

"Of course you detest having me here, but you won't put me out in the
rain, again, will you?"

At once he was his courteous self. With the same motion he dumped the
astonished cat from the cushioned chair by the writing table, and drew
it forward to the fire. Then he threw on a fresh stick of pine that
flared up in a bright blaze, and with deferring gentleness took the
sweater that hung from her shoulders and hung it to dry over a section
of tree-trunk that served as a chimney seat.

"You are as welcome to my hut as any princess to her palace," he smiled
on her, "indeed, it is yours while you choose to stay in it!"

"Don't you think," she made reply, as he drew another chair up opposite
to her, "that under the circumstances we might dispense with fine
speeches? It is hardly, I suppose, what one would call a usual
situation, is it?"

He looked at her as she stretched her small feet comfortably to the
blaze, her face quite unconcerned.

"No," he acquiesced, "it certainly is not usual--or I should hate
it--the 'usual' is what I fly from!"

She threw back her head, clasping her hands behind it as she laughed.
She seemed to luxuriate as frankly in the heat and the dryness as the
cat between them.

"And I"--she turned the comprehension of her eyes upon him--"I cross the
ocean every year in the same flight!"

The storm drove leaves and flying branches against the window, while
they sat, for what seemed a long time, in contented silence. He found
himself as openly absorbing her charm as if she had been a tree or a
mountain sunset, while she was making further tours of inspection with
her eyes about the room.

"It is entirely adorable," she smiled at him, "but it piques my
curiosity!'

"Ask all the questions you wish--no secrets here."

"Then what, if you please, is the object I see swung aloft there in the
dome?"

"My canvas hammock which I lower at night to climb into and g