time the welcome flame leaped up in the wide black chimney, and cast
its red glare all over the little room. The activity did her good, the
light flooding the gloomy apartment yielded renewed courage, and there
was a cheerier sound in her voice as she came back to me.

"The great ugly brute!" she exclaimed, looking at the form in the
centre of the floor.

"He was certainly heavy enough to have been a bear," I replied,
clinching my teeth in pain, "and sufficiently savage."

I viewed her now for the first time clearly, and the memory will remain
with me till I die. How distinctly that entire picture stands forth
with the mist of all these years between! The low-ceiled room, devoid
of all furniture save of the rudest and most primitive kind; the bare
logs forming the walls, unrelieved in their rough ugliness, except as
here and there sundry unshapely garments dangled from wooden pegs; the
rough deal table, with a few cheap dishes piled upon one end of it; the
dead dog lying across the earthen floor; and over all the leap of
'ruddy flame as the newly kindled fire gathered way, leaving weird
shadows here and there, yet steadily forcing them back, and flooding
the whole interior with a cheery glow.

She had flung aside the blue and yellow cloak which, during the long
hours of our night ride had so completely shrouded her, and stood
before me dressed in some soft clinging stuff of a delicate brown
color, so cut and fashioned as to most become her rounded, graceful
form. About her neck a narrow strip of creamy lace was fitted, the full
throat rendered whiter by the contrast, while at her wrists a similar
ornament alone served to relieve the simple plainness of her attire.