ioned dream of the South. Maybe you have enchanted
me, but I love these green hills and mountains, these rivers musical with
cascade and fall, these solemn forests--but for the Black Curse, the South
would be to-day the garden of the world!"

"And you will help our people lift this curse?" softly asked the girl,
nestling closer to his side.

"Yes, dearest, thy people shall be mine! Had I a thousand wrongs to
cherish, I'd forgive them all for your sake. I'll help you build here a
new South on all that's good and noble in the old, until its dead fields
blossom again, its harbours bristle with ships, and the hum of a thousand
industries make music in every valley. I'd sing to you in burning verse if
I could, but it is not my way. I have been awkward and slow in love,
perhaps--but I'll be swift in your service. I dream to make dead stones
and wood live and breathe for you, of victories wrung from Nature that are
yours. My poems will be deeds, my flowers the hard-earned wealth that has
a soul, which I shall lay at your feet."

"Who said my lover was dumb?" she sighed, with a twinkle in her shining
eyes. "You must introduce me to your father soon. He must like me as my
father does you, or our dream can never come true."

A pain gripped Phil's heart, but he answered bravely:

"I will. He can't help loving you."

They stood on the rustic seat to carve their initials within a circle,
high on the old beechwood book of love.

"May I write it out in full--Margaret Cameron--Philip Stoneman?" he
asked.

"No--only the initials now--the full names when you've seen my father and
I've seen yours. Jeannie Campbell and Henry Lenoir were once written thus
in full, and many a lover has looked at that circle and prayed for
happiness like theirs. You can see there a new one cut over the old, the
bark has filled, and written on the fresh page is 'Marion Lenoir' with the
blank below for her lover's name."

Phil looked at the freshly cut circle and laughed:

"I wonder if Marion or her mother did that?"

"Her mother, of course."

"I wonder whose will be the lucky name some day within it?" said Phil
musingly as he finished his own.

CHAPTER X

A NIGHT HAWK

When the old Commoner's private physician had gone and his mind had fully
cleared, he would sit for hours in the sunshine of the vine-clad porch,
asking Elsie of the village, its life, and its people. He smiled
good-naturedly at her eager sympathy for their sufferings