A smile that held something sweet and sensitive flashed a.s.sent, and then in reaction from the stir of undefined feeling, which she was not ready to acknowledge, her eyes danced with sudden humour. Keeping her saddle she glanced behind her to the pony's back, and said:

"Where are our bags of meal?"

Steve laughed in responsive gaiety, and in spite of himself let his eyes rest upon her in kindling admiration.

"Oh, I see good grist which the mill of time has ground for you," he said, and put out his palm again for her to step upon.

But she, flushing with girlish surprise at his ready gallantry, which showed how completely the little mountain boy had been lost in the cultured man, drew back once more and with equal quick wit said, laughing:

"You will certainly find it has, and in good, substantial material if you try to take my weight in your hand."

"The same mill has ground out for me an adequate amount of muscle," he declared, adding with a hint of pleading in his voice, "You must let me renew old times," and without further protest she lightly touched his hand with her foot as she sprang from the pony's back.

"Weight doesn't count with so light a touch as that," laughed Steve, and started to lead the pony into the stable, when a coloured boy stepped up to care for it.

"You see we keep a groom these days," said Nancy.

"Yes; what style the mountains are taking on," returned Steve, as Nancy gathered up the long skirt of her riding habit, and the two walked together through the gra.s.s to the porch.

"To what an astonishing height you have grown," said she with naive charm, looking up at him.

"You have done equally well," he returned, measuring with his eye her slender length; then he added with his sudden smile which held the whimsical quality of old friendship, "Please tell me,--where are the curls?"

"Oh, they are tucked snugly away out of sight," said she demurely, with a pretty gesture which straying tendrils had made habitual, and the warm colour rising again to her face.

"There should be a law against carrying curls concealed," said he.

By this time they were at the porch, and as they resumed the family exchange of items of interest from each side, Steve and Nancy sitting on the steps as in the old days, he saw the fair dream-structure of the past few weeks in the beginning of complete realization.

In the evening as Mr. and Mrs. Follet, Steve and Nancy sat again on the porch enjoying the night air after a warm day, they talked interestedly of old times and the changes which had taken place.

Steve found that Crosscut, the little flag station over which Mr.

Follet presided, had expanded into a small straggling town with a meeting-house, school of uncertain sessions and a thriving saloon.

As they chatted pleasantly a young man turned into the gate and came up the path with a debonair swing that proclaimed him much at home.

"Howdy everybody," he said jauntily, and Nancy rose with pleasant greeting for him. Then turning to Steve she introduced Mr. Colton to Mr. Langly.

Steve met the newcomer with quiet courtesy, while Mr. Colton responded with cordiality of the "hail-fellow-well-met" type, and immediately seated himself beside Nancy with an air of proprietorship.

Very soon Mr. Follet in the course of conversation turned and addressed Steve by his first name.

"Steve!" exclaimed the visitor. "Didn't Miss Nancy introduce you to me as Mr. Langly? Are you Steve Langly who visited Louisville with a Mr.

Polk some ten or twelve years ago?"

"I am," said Steve with much surprise.

"Is that so?" returned Mr. Colton with enthusiasm. "Well, I am Raymond Colton!"

"Indeed," exclaimed Steve heartily. "Well, this is pleasant."

"I should say so," returned Raymond. "I tell you, old fellow, we never forgot that lickin' you gave us at our school--served us right and did us good." He launched into a hilarious account of that experience which everybody enjoyed, and there was a little pleasant, general conversation. Then Raymond suddenly exclaimed:

"Miss Nancy, where's your banjo?" and went at once for it.

"I tell you, Steve, she can play on the old banjo and sing as no one else ever did," he said as he returned and laid it in her lap.

Nancy turned to Steve with a quick flush which showed even in the moonlight and protested: "I really don't know a thing about it, only what father taught me when I was a little girl."

And Mr. Follet said excitedly, "You see, Steve, she was so lonesome after you left I had to get the old thing down to cheer her up. I hadn't played any on it since I was a young fellow courtin' her mother. I don't believe I'd ever got her without that banjo," he added and laughed with great good humour. "Nancy don't think much of it," he went on. "She thinks it's nothin' beside the piano, but Raymond, here, is like me, he thinks it beats the piano all hollow."

"Sing 'Robin Adair,'" put in Raymond, and Nancy began striking soft minor chords for a little prelude. Then a rich, contralto voice, low and clear, told the tender old story of Robin Adair and his love, which the banjo echoed with little improvised hints of the air.

Raymond and Mr. Follet called for one song after another of the old favourites, Raymond often joining in with a fine tenor, which harmonized perfectly with Nancy's contralto. At last she sang of her own accord "The Rosary."

There was an exquisite pathos in the beautiful, heart-breaking notes that stirred Steve deeply. What depth of feeling, as well as maidenly reserve and charm, his little Nancy had developed! The curls and pinafores were gone, it was true, but as he watched her sweet, expressive face in the moonlight and felt the fullness of her sympathy and understanding in the singing, he said to himself, "I am willing to lose them for this!"

"Miss Nancy, please don't ever sing that any more; it gives me the shivers," said Raymond and was seconded by Mr. Follet.

"It's bedtime for old folks, anyhow," the latter went on, and added, "I guess Steve's tired enough to go, too," and though Steve was not ready to admit this, Raymond gave him gay good-night and he followed his host to the little attic room where he had slept as a boy, and which Mrs. Follet had made ready for him, because he had insisted that it was just the place for him. The house was small and he knew somebody must vacate comfortable quarters if he slept elsewhere.

But once in the old bed Steve did not find fair memories crowding about as he had antic.i.p.ated. Even the echoing sweet songs lost their melody. Indeed he could think of nothing but the fact that Nancy and Raymond Colton sat together on the front porch, left there by her parents as though he had special rights. A midnight thunder-storm caught up his perturbed thought with noisy energy.

"But why not!" he exclaimed sadly for the hundredth time to his rebellious heart. "You certainly have no claim."

But that lately aroused, throbbing fountain of love's pulsations replied with vehemence: "I have! I have loved her every moment since I first looked upon her as a little girl, and I love her in her sweet maturity with all my soul. She is mine!"

So the wordy war went on between his good sense and his yearning heart, banishing every dear, cherished memory and postponing sleep till the wee morning hours.

Next day after the breakfast dishes were done, Mrs. Follet proposed that Nancy take Steve for a ride with Gyp and the family horse over to the Greely woods, their old favourite haunt, and this exactly suited Steve, for, in spite of the night's disturbance, nothing could please him more than an opportunity for companionship with Nancy alone, and he was still impatient to see if his memory of that rugged ridge of woodland was correct.

He went out at once to saddle the horses. It was a crisp, cool, clear morning after the storm, and Nancy soon appeared in a trim riding habit and cap with deep visor to shade the eyes. The severe lines and dark blue of her costume made charming contrast to her softly rounded face, with its delicate colouring and the stray yellow tendrils of hair which were always slipping out from the fluffy braids which bound her head. She surely was fair to look upon, and when Steve had a.s.sisted her to mount in the old way,--holding out his hand and she stepping upon it in laughing ease,--she sat her pony with the graceful poise of the true Kentucky girl, making a picture which less partial observers than Steve could not have failed to find full of charm. They cantered off briskly down the road.

When they reached the wood Steve grew keenly reminiscent, as had become his habit the last few weeks. Forgetting Raymond completely, the past came back to him vividly; he seemed to feel again Nancy's confiding trust in him,--and he yearned to know how clearly she remembered. He looked often upon her as she rode beside him, the two horses touching noses in the narrow path, but the delicate face revealed nothing.

"Do you remember," he said at last, "what a veritable slave you made of me in this old wood?"

She laughed brightly and replied, "Why no, I haven't any such recollection."

"Well, you knew even then just how to do it," he returned with a bit of insinuation. "You would look up at the tallest, hardest tree to climb and see some high-hanging blossom which you coveted, and I immediately scaled the tree's height to lay the blossom at your feet."

She laughed again and her cheeks this time flushed a rosy hue, unaccountably disconcerting to her.

"But that, after all, was as it should have been," he went on after a moment, smiling. "We men need your bidding to send us to the heights, always."

"I do not agree with you," she said, recovering her poise instantly; and summoning a girlish perversity, she led him straightway from sentiment to the substantial. "Each one must mount up in his own strength, like these splendid old trees, without prop or help, only the light from above to draw it upward," and a very demure look crossed her ever-changing face as she finished the little speech.

"You are right," said Steve smiling and remembering Mrs. Polk's lesson from the giant beech so long ago. "And yet, after all, many things help the tree in its growth besides the light from above,--the sun.

There are the winds and the rain, and"--he paused a moment,--"its mates. Don't you know a tree rarely stands alone unless man has cut down its companions. They like comradeship. I believe they are dependent upon it in ways we do not know."