Reluctantly she permitted me to lay the packet in her arms, displeasure still darkening her brow.  Then I set my lantern on the puncheon floor and stepped outside, closing the hatchet-battered door behind me.

How long I paced the foggy strip of clearing I do not know.  The mist had thickened to rain when I heard the door creak; and, turning in my tracks, caught the lantern’s sparkle on the threshold, and the dull gleam of her Oneida finery.

I picked up the lantern and held it high above us.

Smiling and bashful she stood there in her clinging skirt and wampum-broidered vest, her slender, rounded limbs moulded into soft knee-moccasins of fawn-skin, and the Virgin’s Girdle knotted across her thighs in silver-tasselled seawan.

And, “Lord!” said I, surprised by the lovely revelation.  “What a miracle are you in your forest masquerade!”

“Am I truly fine to please you, Euan?”

I said, disturbed, but striving to speak lightly: 

“Little Oneida goddess in your bridal dress, the Seven Dancers are laughing at me from your eyes; and the Day-Sun and the Night-Sun hang from your sacred girdle, making it flash like silvery showers of seawan.  Salute, O Watcher at the Gates of Dawn!  Onwa oyah!  Na-i!  A-i!  Lois!” And I drew my light war-hatchet from its sheath and raised it sparkling, in salute.

She laughed a little, blushed a little, and bent her dainty head to view her finery once more, examining it gravely to the last red quill sewed to the beaded toe-point.

Then, still serious, she lifted her grey eyes to me: 

“I seem to find no words to thank you, Euan.  But my heart is—­ very—­ full——­” She hesitated, then stretched forth her hand to me, smiling; and as I touched it ceremoniously with finger-tip and lip: 

“Ai-me!” she exclaimed, withdrawing under shelter.  “It is raining, Euan!  Your rifle-shirt is wet already, and you are like to take a chill!  Come under shelter instantly!”

“Fancy a man of Morgan’s with a chill!” I said, but nevertheless obeyed her, set the lantern on the puncheon floor, brushed the fine drops from thrums and hatchet-sheath, rubbed the bright-edged little axe with buck-skinned elbow, and wiped my heavy knife from hilt to blade.

As I looked up, busy with my side-arms, I caught her eye.  We smiled at each other; then, as though a common instinct stirred us to caution, we turned and looked silently toward the settle in the corner, where the widow sat brooding alone.

“May we speak freely here, Lois?” I whispered.

She cast a cautious glance at the shadowy figure, then, lowering her voice and leaning nearer: 

“I scarcely know whether she truly heeds and hears.  She may not—­ yet—­ she may.  And I do not care to share my confidences with anyone—­ save you.  I promised to tell you something about myself....  I mean to, some day.”

“Then you will not tell me now?”