"I hardly expected it would be when I saw the way you dived for it,"
she answered with a smile; "but thanks all the same. Had it got past
you, it would have been good-bye to it altogether. Isn't this a
morning?"

"Very pleasant after the rain," he said.

"Pleasant!" she cried. "Is that the best you can say for it? Pleasant!
Why it makes me feel that there is nothing in the world which is beyond
my power; no difficulty I could not fight and overcome; no danger I
could not despise and laugh at. My blood is full of the very fire I
of life, and I pant to do something-something unexpected, outrageous,
desperate. Don't you ever feel like that?"

"Sometimes."

"It is good to be a man," she went on. "He has the world before him,
with its high places waiting to be won. There is nothing out of his
reach, if he strive sufficiently, no honor he may not win to. Oh, I
wish I were a man!"

There was a half-whimsical smile upon Ellerey's face, at her enthusiasm,
and in his eyes a look of admiration, which he could not conceal, at
her beauty. Her loose hair streaming in the wind was the color of
burnished copper, rich as a golden autumn tint in the glow of an evening
sun. Her eyes were dark, yet of a changeful color, as full of secrets
as a deep pool in the hollow of a wood, quiet, silent secrets which
presently, when the time came, a lover might seek to understand, yet
promising angry and tempestuous moods should storms happen. Her lips,