"I don't know exactly which path she may have taken." Bates's words grew
more formal the harder he felt himself pressed.

"Path!" burst out the young man--_"Macadamised road,_ don't you mean?
There's about as much of one as the other on this here hill."

"I meant," said Bates, "that I didn't know where she was."

His trouble escaped somewhat with his voice as he said this with
irritation.

The youth looked at him curiously, and with some incipient sympathy.
After a minute's reflection he asked, touching his forehead:

"She ain't weak here, is she--like the _old_ lady?"

"Nothing of the sort," exclaimed Bates, indignantly. The bare idea cost
him a pang. Until this moment he had been angry with the girl; he was
still angry, but a slight modification took place. He felt with her
against all possible imputations.

"All right in the headpiece, is she?" reiterated the other more lightly.

"Very intelligent," replied Bates. "I have taught her myself. She is
remarkably intelligent." The young man's sensitive spirits, which had
suffered slight depression from contact with Bates's perturbation, now
recovered entirely.

"Oh, Glorianna!" he cried in irrepressible anticipation. "Let this very