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“Now,” said he, “I will ask a few questions. Won’t this all-night absence alarm your relatives?”

“Oh, no. I often spend the night at the Adamses’. They will think I am there.”

“Parents are apt to be anxious.”

“But mine are not here, you see.”

“What is your name?”

“Barbara Lowe.”

He fell silent. Barbara was distinctly piqued. He might have exhibited a more flattering interest.

“Is that all you want to know about me?” she cried in an injured tone.

“I know all about you now. Listen: Your name is Barbara Lowe; you come from Detroit, where you are not yet ‘out’; you are an only child; and eighteen or nineteen years of age.”

“Why, who has been telling you about me?” cried Barbara, astonished.

Stanton smiled. “Nobody,” he replied. “Don’t you know that we woodsmen live by our observation? Do you see anything peculiar about that tree?”

Barbara examined the vegetable in question attentively. “No,” she confessed at last.

“There is an animal in it. Look again.”

“I can see nothing,” repeated Barbara, after a second scrutiny.

Stanton arose. Seizing a brand from the fire, he rapped sharply on the trunk. Then slowly what had appeared to be a portion of the hole began to disintegrate, and in a moment a drowsy porcupine climbed rattling to a place of safety.

“That is how I know about you,” explained the woodsman, returning to the fire. “Your remark about staying overnight told me that you were visiting the Maxwells rather than the Adamses; I knew the latter must be relatives, because a girl who wears pretty summer dresses would not visit mere friends in the wilderness; you would get tired of this life in a few weeks, and so will not care to stay longer; you wear your school-pin still, so you are not yet ‘out’; the maker’s name in your parasol caused me to guess you from Detroit.”

“And about my being an only child?”

“Well,” replied Stanton, “you see, you have a little the manner of one who has been a trifle—-“

“Spoiled!” finished Barbara, with wicked emphasis.

Stanton merely laughed.

“That is not nice,” she reproved, with vast dignity.

A cry, inexpressibly mournful, quivered from the woods close at hand.

“Oh, what is that?” she exclaimed.

“Our friend the porcupine. Don’t be frightened.”

Down through the trees sighed a little wind. “Whoo! whoo! whoo!” droned an owl, monotonously. The sparks from the fire shot up and eddied. A chill was in the air. Barbara’s eyes grew heavier and heavier. She tucked her feet under her and expanded in the warmth like a fireside kitten. Then, had she known it, the man was looking at her, looking at her with a strange, wistful tenderness in his gray eyes. Dear, harmless, innocent little Barbara, who had so confidingly trusted in his goodness!

“Come, little girl,” he said, softly, at last.

He arose and held out his hand. Awakened from her abstraction, she looked at him with a faint smile and eyes from which all coquetry had gone, leaving only the child.

“Come,” he repeated, “time to turn in.”

She arose dutifully. The little tent really looked inviting. The balsam bed proved luxurious, soft as feathers.

“When you are ready,” he told her, “let me know. I want to open the tent-flap for the sake of warmth.”

The soft woollen blanket was very grateful. When the flap was open, Barbara found that a second fire had been built with a backing of green logs so arranged as to reflect the heat directly into her shelter.

She was very sleepy, yet for a long time she lay awake. The noises of the woods approached mysteriously, and drew about the little camp their mystic circle. Some of them were exceedingly terrifying, but Barbara did not mind them, for he sat there, his strong, graceful figure silhouetted against the light, smoking his pipe in contemplation. Barbara watched him for a long time, until finally the firelight blurred, and the great, solemn shadows stopped dancing across the forest, and she dozed.

Hours later, as it seemed, some trifling sound awakened her. The heat still streamed gratefully into the tiny shelter; the solemn shadows still danced across the forest; the contemplative figure still stared into the embers, strongly silhouetted by the firelight. A tender compunction stole into Barbara’s tender little heart.