infelicitous tendency of most weak natures, to unconsciously exaggerate
unimportant details in their talk, the Postmaster presently became
convinced that the butcher was a constant and assiduous suitor of
Flip's. The absurdity of his sending parcels and letters by post when he
might bring them himself did not strike the official. On the contrary,
he believed it to be a master stroke of cunning. Fired by jealousy and
Flip's indifference, he "deemed it his duty"--using that facile form of
cowardly offensiveness--to betray Flip.

Of which she was happily oblivious. Once away from the cabin, she
plunged into the woods, with the parcel swung behind her like a
knapsack. Leaving the trail, she presently struck off in a straight line
through cover and underbrush with the unerring instinct of an animal,
climbing hand over hand the steepest ascent, or fluttering like a bird
from branch to branch down the deepest declivity. She soon reached
that part of the trail where the susceptible Postmaster had seen the
fascinating unknown. Assuring herself she was not followed, she crept
through the thicket until she reached a little waterfall and basin that
had served the fugitive Lance for a bath. The spot bore signs of later
and more frequent occupancy, and when Flip carefully removed some bark
and brushwood from a cavity in the rock and drew forth various folded
garments, it was evident she had used it as a sylvan dressing-room. Here
she opened the parcel; it contained a small and delicate shawl of yellow
China crepe. Flip instantly threw it over her shoulders and stepped
hurriedly toward the edge of the wood. Then she began to pass backward
and forward before the trunk of a tree. At first nothing was visible on
the tree, but a closer inspection showed a large pane of ordinary window
glass stuck in the fork of the branches. It was placed at such a cunning
angle against the darkness of the forest opening that it made a soft and
mysterious mirror, not unlike a Claude Lorraine glass, wherein not only