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of the love that was not to be hers; Ariadne with the sadness of passion in her eyes, gazing from Charon's boat ever across the Styx to catch the light once more that shone for her in Naxos; Proserpine numbly conscious of her fate, moving on to it, yet catching at the blossoms of the bay branches, the moss of the cypress, at all fair things as she passed, in hopes of once more grasping that rare strange flower she had risked Hades for.

Miss Norie and Miss Norie's Poll had been seen for many years speeding over the amber waters of the cypress swamps -strange weird figures who came from none knew where. People dropped their voices at night when speaking of them, and dozens of improbable stories were afloat concerning the strange journey ings of this isolated couple.

"She is Miss Norie," the black had stated once to some fishermen who questioned him, "an' I'm Apollo Dupre. I b'longs to her."

It was no use for them to touch on the question of his freedom:

"I wa' free afo'e the wah begun," he stated proudly, but I'm Miss Norie's niggah jest the same."

Does she own any more like you?" "My mistress don' need no mo', sah; I can take care o' her without help," and the dull flame in the slumbrous eyes told his questioner that it might not be well to twit this slave who clasped the yoke to his own shoulders.

No white man but Bob Granthem in that locality knew aught of the retreat to which the black and his strange freight disappeared. Some more adventurous than others had endeavored to follow the dug-out only to find themselves lodged among the cypress knees or grounded on the black mud of the swamps, but it was generally known or believed that the swamp was unbroken by solid ground at least ten miles back from the river. A few of the older negroes said "mebbe" they could find the old way through the net-work of bayous, but all had a wholesome dread of the uncanny appearing Poll with his giant's stature, his pure Greek features and his ebony skin; and not a black about there could be inveigled by the curious into guiding them to the rumored "dry land"

of which no one seemed to have actual knowledge.

Once in a while a young white man and a middle-aged white woman had been seen emerging from some of the numerous branches of water, but they always kept on down the river to the arm of the sound into which it emptied; and sometimes they were seen returning when none had seen them take their departure, so there was supposed to be more than one outlet to the hidden plantation-one possibly to the sound. None of the quartette had ever been seen inside a house in the country; no letters ever came to the fishing stations on the river. Sometimes a canoe would be seen with Poll alone in it with a load of skins of mink, polecat and other small animals, and now and then rich-hued snake-skins that he had in some way cured without loss to their changeful tints, that he sold as charms against rheumatism and numerous ailments; the other skins he found ready sale for at some of the fisheries where the men would buy up anything from the natives, on which they could speculate. But wherever Poll spent the money so earned it was not in those parts, and it was generally believed that the young white man did the purchasing. He, however, exchanged just as few words with the curious as did Poll, though he held none of the peculiar weird interest as did the black, perhaps because he was never seen with the lovely wide-eyed girl.

Even to Bess Haley, her mother's sister, and to young Granthem, who had taught her to read, she and her black ally were creatures they did not understand and did not care to cross. Poll, who like his mother had the gift of wresting from the earth hidden treasures of herb, and root, and mineral, performed many cures that seemed like magic to those mountain people transplanted to the swamps from which Bess half believed the negro had sprung fully matured, holding in his strong black hands a key of knowledge that unlocked all its secrets to him. And Poll's manner toward his Miss Norie was the homage of a slave to a young queen, a certain tone in speaking to her, or of her, that prevented anything like familiarity on the part of the other two.

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So they had lived until Mr. Bob Granthem concluded that in his periodicaloften mysterious-trips outside their little world he had seen no one who could compare with this girl, who was a puzzle to him despite his teaching her in the rudiments of education-an education in which she soon distanced him, as the art of reading had opened to her the store of knowledge sealed in the covers of the many books left her by her father, from whom she had inherited those artistic tendencies that enabled her to appreciate much of the beauty in old engravings, over which she would pore and from which she had copied many of the dresses that gave her a strange appearance in the eyes of her mother's kinsfolk.

In the mind of Bess there was always the conviction that through her aristocratic connections she would eventually come into property if there was any one to look after her interests; and consequently she had received Mr. Bob's statement of infatuation with delight, and

dwelt continually on the advisability of Miss Norie pledging herself to some one who could take care of her in case of the demise of herself, which she prophesied was not far off.

Norie rebelled at first. She had Poll, and that was enough; but they impressed on her mind that she could not live there alone with Poll the rest of her life. It was something unheard of. And so, little by little, she was persuaded into promising that some day she would be Mr. Bob Granthem's wife. The child, for she was little more despite her womanly height of figure, knew but little of what the title meant. She had seen nothing of domestic life except their own, and had little idea of marital relations, as was proved by her statement to Poll.

The tangle of vines ahead of them grew denser and denser; the stream narrowed until at times the thickets of cane were pushed apart by the canoe and closed behind them, leaving no trace of the narrow, deep run of water that

crept serpent-like under the cover of just showing all its brightness for one reeds.

"She looks for him back to-day, don't she?" queried the girl after a long silence.

"I reckon so. He should 'a' been back yesterday; he had no big load this time. Thar-that sounds mighty like him now."

A far-off hallo came faintly to their ears through the jungle, and then a distant dog's bark.

"Yes, that sutenly am Marse Bob Granthem," and Poll drew a bone whistle from his pocket and blew a long, loud call that cut the air like a knife; and, as he resumed the paddling, Miss Norie suddenly raised herself upright, as if with some new idea.

"Poll, let's go by the boiling springs." "Why, Miss Norie, it'll take up some time, an' he's a waitin' fer us."

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"Let him," she answered briefly; and then coaxingly, "please, Poll! we have n't been to see them for a week-a whole week."

"That so?" with an air of astonishment as if it was a duty neglected; "then I reckon I'll have to carry you there."

The girl settled down on her couch again, contentedly, while he drove the canoe through brake and bayou until at last it shot out into a great open space, where he paddled slowly and carefully along the edge of reeds and bushes. The cause of his caution was manifesting itself in the fate of some blossoms the girl threw towards the centre of the little lake. They drifted slowly away for a distance, and then as slowly returned, gliding past in a circle; several times they passed, but every circle was narrower than the preceding one, until at last with a quick rush they disappeared in a whirlpool of the clear sparkling water that was different from that of the bayou. A few rods away the level of the lake was disturbed and broken by a boiling-up of the water like that of a kettle over a fire. It was the boiling springs of which the girl had spoken. Day after day she loved to go and gaze on the bewitched water, as Poll called it, and bewitched it seemed--that great fountain, pure and cold, bubbling and flashing up from some secret vein far below the sluggish depths of the swamps;

fleeting glance, and then gliding in still fateful way into the glassiness of that outer circle that drew the bonds of witchery closer-closer, until with one little ripple, as if of laughter, it plunged again into the whirlpool that drew down only the water of the springs, the purest and best, in its charmed circles. The force of that swift current drove back the amber water of the swamps; divided it like a wall from the sparkling, be witched ripples that went laughing to oblivion, content that for one instant they had reflected the light from heaven.

"I wonder where it will carry the flowers I threw it," queried the girl, looking down into the mirror-like surface, as if it was a human thing to which she had thrown the lilies and the bay bloom.

"Don' know, hon'. I reckon they get pulled to pieces in that whirlpool."

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"I don't," she answered. “I think the water must love them because they are so pure an' white; an' away down there I think there is a great cave where the rocks are cool an' mossy, an' there are shells an' flowers that grow under the water, an' through the halls of the cave the water makes sleepy music like the whisper o' the pine when the wind blows, an' every drop of the water that goes from here catches an' carries with it a spark of sunshine to help light the home it runs back to; an' if a flower of our world is given to the water, I think it would be carried so carefully down through the whirlpool until the greenest an' coolest bed of moss was found to lay it on, an' keep as in memory o' one day spent in sight o' the sky an' the sun. An' that, Poll, is where I think the flow ers and the water go."

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"I-I reckon so, Miss Norie, hon"," answered Poll, dubiously; “don' know how yo' come to think of it, but I reckon it's as likely as any other notion 'bout that bewitched water; but yo' ole Poll don' like to see yo' puzzlin yo' head ovah it, an' don' look in it so much, chile, it might lay a spell on yeh; an' I reckon we'd bettah go home now-he 'll be riled, maybe."

"Yes, we can go now; but I could n't let yo' go the other way when I had n't seen the water for a whole week.”

No other words were spoken by the two until they reached a rude landing, where, on fastening the canoe, Poll deliberately picked up Miss Norie in his arms as if she were a child, and strode across the reeking logs until he reached firm, dry soil before putting her down.

"I'm getting too big to be toted, Poll," she said, laughing a little as he gave her the great bunch of swamp flowers she had gathered.

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"I don't allow yo' evah to get too big foh that," and gathering the fish from the canoe into a high basket, he balanced it on his head and followed her along the narrow path that led up an incline to the dry land above the swamp. was a high level plateau they had reached, that rose from the swamp-land like an island, and was about a mile squarehigh, dry and fertile in the midst of miles of swamps. It had all been bought by Louis Dupre years before, as a cypress swamp, embracing several miles of the low ground between the river and the sound, with this one bit of high land in its midst, where he and Poll had first built a little cabin, to which additions had been gradually made, until Miss Norie's home was now composed of four cabins, with porches or open hallways between them, all forming around three sides of a little court in which flowers bloomed in tropical luxuriance. Great rugged limbs of the ivy twisted and coiled over the rustic log-walls, throwing out great sprays of tendrils in every direction, and making the place an immense vine-covered bower.

In front of the house was a grove of oak and pine reaching to the swamp. A middle-aged woman was spreading some white cloth on the grass, to bleach in the hot sun. A young man walking back and forth on the centre porch stopped in the manner of one waiting, while he watched the girl coming up through the grove looking like some fair lady of the Eastern lands in her white draperies, followed by the massive black figure, with the tall, jar-shaped basket poised on the head that bore it as if it were a crown.

The young fellow was fairly stalwart, and not bad looking, though with a hulking uncouthness of movement. He was about twenty-five, with good features and a sharp, knowing look in the

gray eyes that watched the two with a glint of displeasure in them.

"So you've got back, Mr. Bob Granthem," the girl said with a listlessness in the soft, slow tones; "we reckoned you'd come to-day."

"Is that the reason yeh took to the swamps?" he asked grimly.

"No, that was n't the reason," and the voice was a little slower, a little softer; "I jest went because Poll went, and because I wanted to; I always go where I want to," and she turned into the house, giving him no time for remark had he wanted it.

His face flushed angrily, and clenching one hand he struck it fiercely into the palm of the other, with a muttered oath, which he checked suddenly as he noticed Poll still standing near watching him with a curious expression in the steady black eyes.

"Well, what are yo' standing there staring at ?" he burst out irritably; "why don't yo' go put them fish away."

"I's waitin' to know what yeh done call me, foh, Marse Bob," he answered quietly; "I reckoned it was foh some work."

"Yes, yes, of course," said the young fellow, reassured by the quiet tones. "I run across a man on the other cut about two mile back; he was lost in the swamp and is ragin' sick besides. Yo' bettah take some herb stuff an' eatables to him, an' tow him out to the river. I reckon he's got friends around there, but they'll have to bury him if he don't get there quick."

"What seems to ail him ?"

"Some sort o' fever, I reckon; but I don' know much about sick folks. I give him some crackers an' whiskey, an' told him I'd send some one. It would n't do to bring him heah, 'cause he might die, and that would be awkward.”

"I und'stan', Marse Bob," and in ten minutes Poll was striding across the level fields with a hamper across his shoulders.

"Where's he going, Bess?" asked the girl, as she saw him from the. little court.

"A takin' herb roots to a sick man down in the swamp," answered that lady brusquely. 'Bob's done been a waitin' on him this hour back, a callin' an' a

yellin' all to no good; I wonder he ain't riled."

"He was," answered the girl, and then walked into the house where the young fellow was smoking a big black pipe.

"I'm sorry we staid so long, Mr. Bob," she said, standing in the open doorway, her calm, wide eyes making him feel uncomfortable always with their directness. "I'm real sorry because the sick man had to wait so long for Poll. It was my fault; I wanted to go around by the witched water, and so he took me."

"Of course," nodded the young fellow. "He'd try and take yeh down to the bottom of it if yo' took a notion to go. Don't yeh think yo' gettin' too much of a woman to go around like that alone with a niggah an' in them queer clothes that make folks think yo' crazy?" "They 's easy and comfortable," she said slowly, looking down at the offend ing drapery. A loose belt of crimson bird-feathers held the gown in to the

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wide, and over the head was a square piece of the muslin pinned into folds, that formed a shelter for the fair face. The whole formed a picture that could only have originated in a mind keenly alive to beauty of form and color; but small wonder if she was classed as insane by those of Mr. Granthem's type. It looks heathenish," he persisted. "Does it?" she asked, smiling a little. "I have a picture in the Bible, of Christ in a dress just like this, only he is barehead. I liked it in the picture. I don't know how it is on me for looks, but Poll likes it, and I like it, and I don't reckon I'll make any change;" and she slipped down into a big home-made chair, letting the cover drop from her head to the floor.

She looked so fair, so soft, so sweet, and yet he knew that for all the softness of feature and gentleness of expression, his wishes, his will, could not influence her one iota.

"Where's the man that's sick?" she asked, after a long silence.

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