As she worked, the shadow again lifted from the girl's face, a smile came back to her scarlet lips, and she sang underbreath as only a young maiden can sing to whom love is a wonder and marriage a far-off dream.
She recalled the look which lay on the face of the man who was riding with bared head in ecstasy of the scene above and below him; but, most of all, she dwelt upon the gracious and candid glance of admiration with which he greeted her and which he repeated as he disappeared below her to be seen no more.
This look went with her to her room, and as she sat at her window, which opened upon the river, she wondered whether he had gone into camp in the pine groves just below the bridge, or whether he had taken lodgings at the hotel.
She had lovers--no girl of her charm could move without meeting the admiring glances of men; but this stranger's regard was so much more subtly exalting--it held an impersonal quality--it went beyond her entire understanding, adding an element of mystery to herself, to him, and to the sunset.