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“I have eaten better, and worse,” said Miss Portfire, quietly.

“But I thought you–that is, you said–“

“I spent a year in the hospitals, when father was on the Potomac,” returned Miss Portfire, composedly. After a pause she continued: “You remember after the second Bull Run–But, dear me! I beg your pardon; of course, you know nothing about the war and all that sort of thing, and don’t care.” (She put up her eye-glass and quietly surveyed his broad muscular figure against the chimney.) “Or, perhaps, your prejudices–But then, as a hermit you know you have no politics, of course. Please don’t let me bore you.”

To have been strictly consistent, the hermit should have exhibited no interest in this topic. Perhaps it was owing to some quality in the narrator, but he was constrained to beg her to continue in such phrases as his unfamiliar lips could command. So that, little by little, Miss Portfire yielded up incident and personal observation of the contest then raging; with the same half-abstracted, half-unconcerned air that seemed habitual to her, she told the stories of privation, of suffering, of endurance, and of sacrifice. With the same assumption of timid deference that concealed her great self-control, she talked of principles and rights. Apparently without enthusiasm and without effort, of which his morbid nature would have been suspicious, she sang the great American Iliad in a way that stirred the depths of her solitary auditor to its massive foundations. Then she stopped and asked quietly, “Where is Bob?”

The hermit started. He would look for her. But Bob, for some reason, was not forthcoming. Search was made within and without the hut, but in vain. For the first time that evening Miss Portfire showed some anxiety. “Go,” she said to Barker, “and find her. She MUST be found; stay, give me your overcoat, I’ll go myself.” She threw the overcoat over her shoulders and stepped out into the night. In the thick veil of fog that seemed suddenly to inwrap her, she stood for a moment irresolute, and then walked toward the beach, guided by the low wash of waters on the sand. She had not taken many steps before she stumbled over some dark crouching object. Reaching down her hand she felt the coarse wiry mane of the Princess.

“Bob!”

There was no reply.

“Bob. I’ve been looking for you, come.”

“Go ‘way.”

“Nonsense, Bob. I want you to stay with me to-night, come.”

“Injin squaw no good for waugee woman. Go ‘way.”

“Listen, Bob. You are daughter of a chief: so am I. Your father had many warriors: so has mine. It is good that you stay with me. Come.”

The Princess chuckled and suffered herself to be lifted up. A few moments later and they re-entered the hut, hand in hand.

With the first red streaks of dawn the next day the erect Barker touched his cap at the door of the hut. Beside him stood the hermit, also just risen from his blanketed nest in the sand. Forth from the hut, fresh as the morning air, stepped Miss Portfire, leading the Princess by the hand. Hand in hand also they walked to the shore, and when the Princess had been safely bestowed in the stern sheets, Miss Portfire turned and held out her own to her late host.

“I shall take the best of care of her, of course. You will come and see her often. I should ask you to come and see me, but you are a hermit, you know, and all that sort of thing. But if it’s the correct anchorite thing, and can be done, my father will be glad to requite you for this night’s hospitality. But don’t do anything on my account that interferes with your simple habits. Good by.”

She handed him a card, which he took mechanically.

“Good by.”

The sail was hoisted, and the boat shoved off. As the fresh morning breeze caught the white canvas it seemed to bow a parting salutation. There was a rosy flash of promise on the water, and as the light craft darted forward toward the ascending sun, it seemed for a moment uplifted in its glory.