The deep eyes confirmed this by the drooping of the lids.

"And you broke in--what for?"

No answer.

"Who are you?"

Really the situation was becoming unbearable, so Truedale changed his tactics. He would play with the poor little thing and rea.s.sure her.

"Now that I look at you I see what you are. You're not a human at all.

You're a spirit of something or other--probably of one of those perky mountains over yonder. The White Maid, I bet! You had to don my clothes in order to materialize before my eyes and you had to use that word of the hills--so that I could understand you. It's quite plain now and you are welcome to my--my bath robe; I dare say that, underneath it, you are decked out in filmy clouds and vapours and mists. Oh! come now--" The strange eyes were filling--but not overflowing!

"I was only joking. Forgive me. Why--"

The wretched fez fell from the soft hair--the bedraggled robe from the rigid shoulders--and there, garbed in a rough home-spun gown, a little plaid shawl and a checked ap.r.o.n, stood--

"It's the no-count," thought Truedale. Aloud he said, "Nella-Rose!"

With the dropping of the disguise years and dignity were added to the girl and Truedale, who was always at his worst in the presence of strange young women, gazed dazedly at the one before him now.

"Perhaps"--he began awkwardly--"you'll sit down. Please do!" He drew a chair toward her. Nella-Rose sank into it and leaned her bowed head upon her arms, which she folded on the table. Her shoulders rose and fell convulsively, and Truedale, looking at her, became hopelessly wretched.

"I'm a beast and nothing less!" he admitted by way of apology and excuse. "I--I wish you _could_ forgive me."

Then slowly the head was raised and to Truedale's further consternation he saw that mirth, not anguish, had caused the shaking of those deceiving little shoulders.

"Oh! I see--you are laughing!" He tried to be indignant.

"Yes."

"At what?"

"Everything--you!"

"Thank you!" Then, like a response, something heretofore unknown and unsuspected in Truedale rose and overpowered him. His shyness and awkwardness melted before the warmth and glow of the conquering emotion.

He got up and sat on the corner of the table nearest his shabby little guest, and looking straight into her bewitching eyes he joined her in a long, resounding laugh.

It was surrender, pure and simple.

"And now," he said at last, "you must stay and have a bite. I am about starved. And you?"

The girl grew sober.

"I'm--I'm always hungry," she admitted softly.

They drew the table close to the roaring fire, leaving doors and windows open to the crisp, sweet; morning air.

"We'll have a party!" Truedale announced. "I'll step over to Jim's cabin and bring the best he's got."

When he returned Nella-Rose had placed cups, saucers, and plates on the table.

"Do you--often have parties?" she asked.

"I never had one before. I'll have them, though, from now on if--if you will come!"

Truedale paused with his arms full of pitchers and platters of food, and held the girl with his admiring eyes.

"And you will let me come and see you--you and your sister and your father? I know all about you. White has explained--everything. He--"

Nella-Rose braced herself against the table and quietly and definitely outlined their future relations.

"No, you cannot come to see us-all. You don't know Marg. If she doesn't find things out, there won't be trouble; when she does find things out there's goin' t' be a right smart lot of trouble brewing!"

This was said with such comical seriousness that Truedale laughed again, but sobered instantly when he recalled the incident of the white bantam which Jim had so vividly portrayed.

"But you see," he replied, "I don't want to let you go after this first party, and never see you again!"

The girl shrugged her shoulders and apparently dismissed the matter. She sat down and, with charming abandon, began to eat. Presently Truedale, amused and interested, spoke again:

"It would be very unkind of you not to let me see you."

"I'm--thinking!" Nella-Rose drew her brows together and nibbled a bit of corn bread meditatively. Then--quite suddenly:

"I'm coming here!"

"You--you mean that?" Truedale flushed.

"Yes. And the big woods--you walk in them?"

"I certainly do."

"Sometimes--I am in the big woods."

"Where--specially?" Truedale was playing this new game with the foolish skill of the novice.

"There's a Hollow--where--" (Nella-Rose paused) "where the laurel tangle is like a jungle--"

Truedale broke in: "I know it! There's a little stream running through it, and--trails."

"Yes!" Nella-Rose leaned back and showed her white teeth alluringly.

"I--I should not--permit this!" For a moment Truedale broke through the thin ice of delight that was luring him to unknown danger and fell upon the solid rock of conservatism.

"Why?" The eyes, so tenderly innocent, confronted him appealingly.

"There are nuts there and--and other things! You are just teasing; you'll let me--show you the way about?"

The girl was all child now and made Truedale ashamed to hold her to any absurd course that his standards acknowledged but that hers had never conceived.

"Of course. I'll be glad to have you for a guide. Jim White has no ideas about nuts and things--he goes to the woods to kill something; he's there now. I dare say mere are other things in the mountains besides--prey?"