“What bird are those from?” asked Alice.

The question so increased his embarrassment that now the marquis could express it only by chewing his cap, and she smilingly waited a moment for the composure of the young naturalist’s feelings.

“She was a low, chunky hen,” said he, at length—­“she was a low, chunky hen, an’ she laid a hundred an’ seven eggs, an’ then she had spazzums an’ whirled roun’ till she died.”

A burst of irrepressible laughter escaped Alice, with the exclamation, “Did anybody ever see such a boy?” as she and her father rode away.  And those were the exceptionable words concerning her son which so rankled that evening in the heart of Mrs. Ruggles.

The marquis gazed with hungry eyes after the airy little figure as it dashed down the unlovely, worm-fenced road.  The golden hair, overflowing its boundaries of blue ribbon, was more glorious to him than the golden sunshine overflowing the blue sky.  They met no more at the spring, but several times a week, from a respectful distance, he watched her riding by.  From Thompson City to the little log bridge over Crawfish Creek the road lay for four miles through heavy woods.  Then came cleared fields, and soon the house of Mrs. Ruggles.

So the summer days went by.  The season was waning, the grading was almost done, and soon the contractor would be elsewhere.  Then came one particularly warm and sultry day.  The screams of locusts everywhere suggested that they were frying.  The colonel, riding once more slowly out toward the workmen with his daughter, was near the middle of the forest.  The trees on either hand were tall, and the road was so straight and narrow that the sunlight scarcely touched it.  The marquis, in the top of a tall chestnut that overhung the road near the edge of the wood, was overhauling a nest of flying squirrels—­perhaps in the hope of finding mottled feathers on their wings.  From his elevation he could see for a great distance down the level, dusty road between the trees, and far across the surrounding country.

The sun did not shine bright, yet no cloud was in the sky.  The atmosphere, thick, oppressive, opaque, veiled the horizon with strange gloom.  Not a leaf could stir in the vast forest.  Not a dimple nor the semblance of a current broke the surface of the sluggish creek.  Not a sound, save the interminable frying of the locusts.

The colonel slackened his pace, surprised that his horse should so soon begin to drip and pant—­Alice, familiar with the road, in the mean time riding a mile ahead.  The marquis clung to the topmost branches, looking at the still sky far above him, the still stream far below him, the still tree-tops far around him, till he caught a glimpse of the only interesting object to be seen—­a black pony bearing its usual burden, if Alice Miller could be called a burden, and pacing leisurely up the road beneath him.  He gazed as far as the palisade of trees permitted, but her father was not yet in sight.