pictures that were like flowers in the wilderness, She greatly enjoyed watching with him the wonderful moonlight effects on the vast shaggy sides and summit of High Peak, that reared its almost untrodden solitudes opposite the hotel. This mountain was the favorite haunt of fantastic clouds. Sometimes in the form of detached mists they would pass up rapidly like white spectres from the vast chasm of the Kaaterskill. Again a heavy mass would settle on the whole length of the mountain, the outlines of which would be lost, and the whole take the semblance of one vast height crowned with the moon's radiance. Nothing fascinated Madge more than to observe how the artist caught the essential elements of beauty in the changing cloud scenery and reproduced the effects on a few inches of canvas, and in her better appreciation of similar scenery thereafter, she saw how true it is that art may be the interpreter of nature.

The fine music and varied entertainments at the

house served also to beguile her time. On one occasion the young people were arranging a series of tableaux, and she was asked to personate Jephtha's daughter. When the curtain rose on her lovely face and large, dark eyes, the Hebrew maiden and her pathetic history grew into vivid reality against the dim background of the past.

After all, the time that intervened between Monday and Friday afternoon was spent in waiting, and even the hours toward the last were counted. The expression in Graydon's dark blue eyes was always

the same when he greeted her, and recalled the line :

"Kinder than Love is my true friend."

On Saturdays they took long tramps, seeking objective points far beyond the range of ordinary ramblers.

CHAPTER XL.

M

THE END OF THE WOOING.

ADGE had often turned wistful eyes toward

High Peak, and on the last Saturday before their final return to the city she said to Graydon, "Dare we attempt it? Perhaps if we gave the day to the climb, and took it leisurely-"

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There's no 'perhaps' about it.

you wish.

We'll go if

I should like nothing better than to get lost with you."

"There is no danger of getting lost," she replied, hastily. "The hotel must be visible from the whole line of its summit, and I am told that there is a path to the top of the mountain.

"I will be ready in half an hour," he said.

It was a lovely day in early September. The air was soft, yet cool and bracing enough to make climbing agreeable. Graydon had a lunch basket, which he could sling over his shoulder, well filled, and ordered a carriage. "There is no need of our tramping over the intervening miles of dusty roads which must be passed before we begin our climb,' he said, and the distance we ride will make a pleasant drive for Mary and the children."

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Madge and Graydon reached the summit without any great difficulty, Mary having returned with the assurance that they would find their own way back to the hotel.

As the hours passed, Graydon began to gather more hope than he had dared to entertain since his shattered theory had so disheartened him. In spite of his fancied knowledge about Madge, it was hard to believe she was very unhappy that morning. There was an elasticity to her step, a ring of genuine gladness in her tones and laugh, which did not suggest that she was consciously carrying a heavy burden.

"She certainly is the bravest and most unselfish girl I ever imagined," he thought, as they left the highest point after enjoying the view. "With an art so inimitable as to be artless, she has tried to give me enjoyment. Instead of regarding herself as one to be entertained, she has been pouring forth words, fancies, snatches of song like sparkling wine, and I am exhilarated instead of being wearied."

When at last they found a spring at which to eat their lunch, he told her so, concluding, "This mountain air does you good, Madge."

"So do you,' she replied, with a piquant nod. "Don't be conceited when I tell you that you are good company.

"No; but I can't help being happy."

“Oh, indeed!

make you happy."

It doesn't seem to take much to

"Not very much from you."

"Pass me a biscuit, Graydon; I want something

more substantial than fine speeches after our climb. Isn't all this truly Arcadian-this mossy rug on which we have placed our lunch, the trees whispering about us overhead, and the spring there bubbling over with something concerning which it murmurs so contentedly ?"

"I wonder what they think of us! I can imagine one thing."

'You are always imagining. The idea of your being a banker! Well, there is a loud whisper from the trees. What was remarked ?”

"That yonder little girl doesn't look so very unhappy.'

"No, Graydon," she said, earnestly, "you inake Saturdays and Sundays very bright to me. No girl ever had a truer friend than you are becoming.' "Have become, Madge."

"Graydon," she said, eagerly, as if hastening from dangerous ground, "the hotel is there just opposite to us. Don't you think we could scramble down the mountain here, and return by Kaaterskill Clove and the Falls? It would be such fun, and

save such a very long distance !" "We'll try it," he said.

spoiling me. You say yes to everything. If you don't think it safe or best you must not humor

me."

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We can soon learn whether it's safe and practicable, and there is no danger of losing our way. We have only to return over the mountain in order to strike the path somewhere at right angles."