cally.

Hardy watched her as she experimented painstakingly with the fire,
scooping out shovelfuls of coal from beneath the glowing logs and
planting her pots and kettles upon them with a hooked stick, according
to instructions.

"You look like a picture of one of our sainted Puritan ancestors," he
observed, at last, "and that's just exactly the way they cooked,
too--over an open fire. How does it feel to be Priscilla?"

"Well, if Priscilla's hands looked like mine," exclaimed Lucy
despairingly, "John Alden must have been madly in love with her. How
_do_ you keep yours clean?"

"That's a secret," replied Hardy, "but I'll tell you. I never touch
the outside of a pot--and I scour them with sandsoap. But I wish you'd
stop cooking, Lucy; it makes me feel conscience-stricken. You are my
guests, remember, even if I do go off and neglect you for a whole day;
and when you go back to Berkeley I want you to have something more
interesting than housekeeping to talk about. Didn't I see two ladies'
saddles out in the wagon?"

Miss Lucy's eyes lighted up with pleasure as, anticipating his drift,
she nodded her head.

"Well then," said Hardy, with finality, "if you'll get up early in the
morning, I'll catch you a little pony that I gentled myself, and we
can ride up the river together. How does that strike you?"

"Fine!" exclaimed Lucy, with sudden enthusiasm.

"Oh, Rufus," she cried impulsively, "if you only knew how weak and
helpless a thing it is to be a woman--and how glad we are to be
noticed! Why, I was just thinking before you came in that about the
only really helpful thing a woman could do in this world was just to
stay around home and cook the meals."

"Well, you just let me cook those meals for a while," said Rufus, with
brotherly authority, "and come out and be a man for a change. Can you
ride pretty well?"

Lucy glanced at him questioningly, and thought she read what was in
his mind.

"Yes," she said, "I can ride, but--but I just couldn't bring myself to
dress like Kitty!" she burst out. "I know it's foolish, but I can't
bear to have people notice me so. But I'll be a man in everything
else, if you'll only give me a chance." She stood before him,
radiant, eager, her eyes sparkling like a child's, and suddenly Hardy
realized how much she lost by being always with Kitty. Seen by herself
she was as lithe and graceful as a fairy, with a steady gaze very rare
in women, and eyes which changed like the shadows in