He had always held his unique place in her memory and in her innocent

affections; she had written to him again and again, in spite of his

evident lack of interest in the girl to whom he had been kind. Rare,

brief letters from him were read and reread, and laid away with her

best-loved treasures. And when the prospect of actually seeing him

again presented itself, she had been so frankly excited and happy that

the Princess Mistchenka could find in the girl's unfeigned delight

nothing except a young girl's touching and slightly amusing

hero-worship.

But with her first exclamation when she caught sight of him at the

terminal, something about her preconceived ideas of him, and her

memory of him, was suddenly and subtly altered, even while his name

fell from her excited lips.

Because she had suddenly realised that he was even more wonderful than

she had expected or remembered, and that she did not know him at

all--that she had no knowledge of this tall, handsome, well-built

young fellow with his sunburnt features and his air of smiling

aloofness and of graceful assurance, almost fascinating and a trifle

disturbing.

Which had made the girl rather grave and timid, uncertain of the

estimation in which he might hold her; no longer so sure of any

encouragement from him in her perfectly obvious attitude of a friend

of former days.

And so, shyly admiring, uncertain, inclined to warm response at any

advance from this wonderful young man, the girl had been trying to

adjust herself to this new incarnation of a certain James Neeland who

had won her gratitude and who had awed her, too, from the time when,

as a little girl, she had first beheld him.

She lifted her golden-grey eyes to him; a little unexpected sensation

not wholly unpleasant checked her speech for a moment.

This was odd, even unaccountable. Such awkwardness, such disquieting

and provincial timidity wouldn't do.

"Would you mind telling me a little about Brookhollow?" she ventured.

Certainly he would tell her. He laid aside his plate and tea cup and

told her of his visits there when he had walked over from Neeland's

Mills in the pleasant summer weather.

Nothing had changed, he assured her; mill-dam and pond and bridge, and

the rushing creek below were exactly as she knew them; her house stood

there at the crossroads, silent and closed in the sunshine, and under

the high moon; pickerel and sunfish still haunted the shallow pond;

partridges still frequented the alders and willows across her pasture;

fireflies sailed through the summer night; and the crows congregated

in the evening woods and talked over the events of the day.

"And my cat? You wrote that you would take care of Adoniram."

"Adoniram is an aged patriarch and occupies the place of honour in my

father's house," he said.




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