the Dyer parlor,--but it was even less pleasant than he had expected. He
sat down, carefully, in a glued chair whose joints had opened with the
dry season and refused to close again; he did not know where the transfer
of his person might end. Captain Dyer was present, and told a great many
stories in a loud, tiring voice. Miss Frances sat by with some soft white
knitting in her hands, and her attitude of patient attention made Arnold
long to attack her with some savage pleasantries on the subject of
Christmas in a mining camp; it seemed to him that patience was a virtue
that could be carried too far, even in woman. Then Mrs. Dyer came in, and
manoeuvred her husband out into the passage; after some loudly suggestive
whispering there, she succeeded in getting him into the kitchen, and shut
the door. Arnold got up soon after that, and said good-evening.

Miss Newell remained in the parlor for some time, after he had gone, moving
softly about. She had gathered her knitting closely into her clasped hands;
the ball trailed after her, among the legs of the chairs, and when in
her silent promenade she had spun a grievous tangle of wool she sat down,
and dropped the work out of her hands with a helpless gesture. Her head
drooped, and tears trickled slowly between the slender white fingers
which covered her face. Presently the fingers descended to her throat and
clasped it close, as if to still an intolerable throbbing ache which her
half-suppressed tears had left.

At length she rose, picked up her work, and patiently followed the tangled
clue until she had recovered her ball; then she wound it all up neatly,
wrapped the knitting in a thin white handkerchief, and went to her room.

With the fine March weather--fine in spite of the light rains--the engineer
was laying out a road to the new shaft; it wound along the hillside where
Miss Newell had first seen the green trees, by the spring. The engineer's