e if he cannot be released
to-night?" she pleaded.

"Sure, girlie, if it will please you. Wait here!"

The sturdy smith took down the key from a nail in the wall and went
out.

Eileen switched her attention to Phil.

"Have you been long in the Valley, Mr. Ralston?"

Phil was afraid of his voice, so he answered in a deeper intonation
than was his usual.

"Just a few days, miss."

"And you're a blacksmith?"

"Not yet, Miss Pederstone!" Phil grinned to himself and felt slightly
more confident. "I hope to be, some day."

Eileen seemed surprised.

"Haven't you been blacksmithing before? Why, my father started to
learn his trade when he was fourteen years old."

"Do I seem so terribly old then?" asked Phil.

"Oh, no!--not that exactly, but old to be starting in to learn a
trade. Sol Hanson isn't so very much older than you can be, but he has
been a journeyman smith ever since I have known him." She stopped.
"Oh, I don't know----You mustn't mind what I say, Mr. Ralston. I guess
I am a bit of a silly. I let my foolish tongue run away with me at
times. I just say what I feel; just what comes to my mind."

"If everyone did that," remarked Phil, "we should have less dissension
in the world."

"And we would make lots of enemies," she put in.

"We might offend those we think are our friends, and we might alarm
each other by mirroring our tremendous deficiencies, but, in the
finish, it would make for sincerity and truthfulness--two qualities of
nature sadly in the background nowadays. Don't you agree with me?"

"Of course you are right!" said Eileen, "but you talk so earnestly one
would almost imagine that you had suffered at some time through the
insincerity and untruthfulness of one you had trusted."

This was getting too near home for Phil.

"None of us have to live very long to do that. I have often thought,
though, that if, when we looked into the mirror, we could see our
natures as well as our reflected features, our conceit would suffer a
severe shock."

"A woman, maybe!" said Eileen, "but nothing can ever cure mortal man
of his conceit."

"You think a man more conceited than a woman?"

"Assuredly!"

Phil laughed, and the laugh rang in his own natural tone.

Eileen Pederstone stopped. Her brows wrinkled as if some little chord
of memory had suddenly been struck.

Phil also dropped back into an awkward silence.

A noise outside roused both of them, and Royce Pederstone crossed the
yard, follow