." She
seemed to possess a large sense of brotherhood for all human and animate
creatures. She spoke to him as if she had known him all her life.
She talked to the grosbeak in exactly the same manner, as she laid
strawberries and potato bugs on the fence for his family. She did
not swerve an inch from her way when a snake slid past her, while the
squirrels came down from the trees and took corn from her fingers.
She might as well have been a boy, so lacking was she in any touch of
feminine coquetry toward him. He studied her wonderingly. As they went
along the path they reached a large slime-covered pool surrounded by
decaying stumps and logs thickly covered with water hyacinths and blue
flags. Philip stopped.

"Is that the place?" he asked.

Elnora assented. "The doctor told you?"

"Yes. It was tragic. Is that pool really bottomless?"

"So far as we ever have been able to discover."

Philip stood looking at the water, while the long, sweet grasses,
thickly sprinkled with blue flag bloom, over which wild bees clambered,
swayed around his feet. Then he turned to the girl. She had worked hard.
The same lavender dress she had worn the previous day clung to her in
limp condition. But she was as evenly coloured and of as fine grain as
a wild rose petal, her hair was really brown, but never was such hair
touched with a redder glory, while her heavy arching brows added a look
of strength to her big gray-blue eyes.

"And you were born here?"

He had not intended to voice that thought.

"Yes," she said, looking into his eyes. "Just in time to prevent my
mother from saving the life of my father. She came near never forgiving
me."

"Ah, cruel!" cried Philip.

"I find much in life that is cruel, from our standpoints," said Elnora.
"It takes the large wisdom of the Unfathomable, the philosophy of the
Almighty, to endure some of it. But there is always right somewhere, and
at last it seems to come."

"Will it come to you?" asked Philip, who found himself deeply affected.

"It has come," said the girl serenely. "It came a week ago. It came in
fullest measure when my mother ceased to regret that I had been born.
Now, work that I love has come--that should constitute happiness. A
little farther along is my violet bed. I want you to see it."

As Philip Ammon followed he definitely settled upon the name of the
unusual feature of Elnora's face. It should be called "experience."
She had known bitter experiences early in lif