of his cup at once. He began to pack his
trunk, and make his preparations for departure. Without avoiding Miss
Mayfield in this new excitement, he no longer felt the need of her
presence. He had satisfied his feverish anxieties by placing his trunk
in the hall beside his open door, and was sitting on his bed, wrestling
with a faded and overtasked carpet-bag that would not close and accept
his hard conditions, when a small voice from the staircase thrilled
him. He walked to the corridor, and, looking down, beheld Miss Mayfield
midway on the steps of the staircase.

She had never looked so beautiful before! Jeff had only seen her in
those soft enwrappings and half-deshabille that belong to invalid
femininity. Always refined and modest thus, in her present
walking-costume there was added a slight touch of coquettish adornment.
There was a brightness of color in her cheek and eye, partly the result
of climbing the staircase, partly the result of that audacious impulse
that had led her--a modest virgin--to seek a gentleman in this personal
fashion. Modesty in a young girl has a comfortable satisfying charm,
recognized easily by all humanity; but he must be a sorry knave or
a worse prig who is not deliciously thrilled when Modesty puts her
charming little foot just over the threshold of Propriety.

"The mountain would not come to Mohammed, so Mohammed must come to the
mountain," said Miss Mayfield. "Mother is asleep, Aunt Sally is at work
in the kitchen, and here am I, already dressed for a ramble in this
bright afternoon sunshine, and no one to go with me. But, perhaps, you,
too, are busy?"

"No, miss. I will be with you in a moment."

I wish I could say that he went back to calm his pulses, which the
dangerous music of Miss Mayfield's voice had set to throbbing, by a
few moments' calm and dispassionate reflection. But he only returned to
brush his curls out of his eyes and ears, and to button over his blue
flannel shirt a white linen collar, which he thought might better
harmonize with Miss Mayfield's attire.

She was sitting on the staircase, poking her parasol through the
balusters. "You need not have taken that trouble, Mr. Jeff," she said
pleasantly. "YOU are a part of this mountain picture at all times; but I
am obliged to think of dress."

"It was no trouble, miss."

Something in the tone of his voice made her look in his face as she
rose. It was a trifle paler, and a little older. The result, doubtless,
thou