When Miss Nellie reached the first mining extension of Indian Spring,
which surrounded it like a fosse, she descended for one instant into one
of its trenches, opened her parasol, removed her duster, hid it under a
bowlder, and with a few shivers and cat-like strokes of her soft
hands not only obliterated all material traces of the stolen cream of
Carquinez Woods, but assumed a feline demureness quite inconsistent with
any moral dereliction. Unfortunately, she forgot to remove at the same
time a certain ring from her third finger, which she had put on with her
duster and had worn at no other time. With this slight exception, the
benignant fate which always protected that young person brought her
in contact with the Burnham girls at one end of the main street as the
returning coach to Excelsior entered the other, and enabled her to take
leave of them before the coach office with a certain ostentation of
parting which struck Mr. Jack Brace, who was lingering at the doorway,
into a state of utter bewilderment.

Here was Miss Nellie Wynn, the belle of Excelsior, calm, quiet,
self-possessed, her chaste cambric skirts and dainty shoes as fresh as
when she had left her father's house; but where was the woman of the
brown duster, and where the yellow-dressed apparition of the woods? He
was feebly repeating to himself his mental adjuration of a few hours
before when he caught her eye, and was taken with a blush and a fit
of coughing. Could he have been such an egregious fool, and was it not
plainly written on his embarrassed face for her to read?

"Are we going down together?" asked Miss Nellie with an exceptionally
gracious smile.

There was neither affectation nor coquetry in this advance. The girl
had no idea of Brace's suspicion of her, nor did any uneasy desire to