“Now, Nat?” he said hoarsely.  He raised his hands slowly, took off her hat, and tossed it aside.  Then with trembling fingers he let down her hair.  It tumbled about her shoulders in a gold and copper glory of light and shade.  Natalie did not stir.  Lewis caught up a handful of her hair and held it against his cheek.  “Now,” he said, “I stay here.  Since long before the day you said that you and I would sail together to the biggest island you’ve held my hand, and I’ve held yours.  Sometimes I’ve forgotten, but—­but I’ve never really let go.  I’ll not let go now.  I’ll cling to you, walk beside you, live with you, hand in hand, until the day you know me through and through.

“And then?” whispered Natalie.

“Then I’ll love you,” said Lewis, gravely.  “For me you hold all the seven worlds of women.  I’ve—­I’ve been walking with my back to the light.”

Natalie laughed—­the soft laughter with which women choke back tears.  She put up her hands and drew Lewis’s head against her breast.

THE END

JOHN FOX, JR’S.

STORIES OF THE KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS

+May be had wherever books are sold.  Ask for Grosset and Dunlap’s list.+

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THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE.  Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

[Illustration]

The “lonesome pine” from which the story takes its name was a tall tree that stood in solitary splendor on a mountain top.  The fame of the pine lured a young engineer through Kentucky to catch the trail, and when he finally climbed to its shelter he found not only the pine but the footprints of a girl.  And the girl proved to be lovely, piquant, and the trail of these girlish foot-prints led the young engineer a madder chase than “the trail of the lonesome pine.”

THE LITTLE SHEPHERD OF KINGDOM COME Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

This is a story of Kentucky, in a settlement known as “Kingdom Come.”  It is a life rude, semi-barbarous; but natural and honest, from which often springs the flower of civilization.

“Chad.” the “little shepherd” did not know who he was nor whence he came—­he had just wandered from door to door since early childhood, seeking shelter with kindly mountaineers who gladly fathered and mothered this waif about whom there was such a mystery—­a charming waif, by the way, who could play the banjo better that anyone else in the mountains.

A KNIGHT OF THE CUMBERLAND.  Illustrated by F. C. Yohn.

The scenes are laid along the waters of the Cumberland, the lair of moonshiner and feudsman.  The knight is a moonshiner’s son, and the heroine a beautiful girl perversely christened “The Blight.”  Two impetuous young Southerners’ fall under the spell of “The Blight’s” charms and she learns what a large part jealousy and pistols have in the love making of the mountaineers.