Of all those concerned Leila was the one most troubled.  On this hot afternoon she saw John disappear into the forest.  When Mrs. Ann came out on the porch where she had for a minute left the girl, she saw her sewing-bag on a chair and caught sight of the flowing hair and agile young figure as she set a hand on the low stone wall of the garden and was over and lost among the trees.  “Leila, Leila,” cried Mrs. Ann, “I told you to finish—­” It was useless.  “Everything goes wrong to-day,” she murmured.  “Well, school will civilize that young barbarian, and she must have longer skirts.”  This was a sore subject and Leila had been vainly rebellious.

Meanwhile the flying girl overtook John, who had things to think about and wished to be alone.  “Well,” he said, with some impatience, “what is it?”

“Oh, I just wanted a walk, and don’t be cross, John.”

He looked at her, and perhaps for the first time had the male perception of the beauty of the disordered hair, the pleading look of the blue eyes, and the brilliant colour of the eager flushed face.  It was the hair—­the wonderful hair.  She threw it back as she stood.  No one could long be cross to Leila.  Even her resolute aunt was sometimes defeated by her unconquerable sweetness.

“I am so sorry for you, John,” she said.

“Well, I am not, Leila, if you mean that Uncle Jim was hard on me.”

“Yes, he was, and I mean to tell him—­I do.”

“Please not.”  She said nothing in the way of reply, but only, “Let us go and see the spring.”

“Well, come along.”

They wandered far into the untouched forest.  “Ah! here it is,” she cried.  A spring of water ran out from among the anchoring roots of a huge black spruce.  He stood gazing down at it.

“Oh, Leila, isn’t it wonderful?”

“Were you never here before, John?”

“No, never.  It seems as if it was born out of the tree.  No wonder this spruce grew so tall and strong.  How cold it must keep the old fellow’s toes.”

“What queer ideas you have, John.”  She had not yet the gift of fancy, long denied to some in the emergent years of approaching womanhood.  “I am tired, John,” she said, as she dropped with hands clasped behind her head and hidden in the glorious abundance of darkening red hair, which lay around her on the brown pine-needles like the disordered aureole of some careless-minded saint.

John said, “It is this terrible heat.  I never before heard you complain of being tired.”

“Oh, it’s just nice tired.”  She lay still, comfortable, with open eyes staring up at the intense blue of the September sky seen through the wide-east limbs of pine and spruce.  The little rill, scarce a finger thickness of water, crawled out lazily between the roots and trickled away.  The girl was in empty-minded enjoyment of the luxury of complete relaxation of every muscle of her strong young body.  The spring was noiseless, no leaf was astir in all the forest around them.  The girl lay still, a part of the vast quietness.