people are angry is to keep perfectly still until the storm blows over. It's no use talking back. Ah! don't do that," he implored as she stooped and kissed the ground. "But I must. It will propitiate the angry spirit and preserve us from danger." "Oh, how can you waste your sweetness on the desert earth, in that fashion? It _may_ preserve us from danger, but it is likely to have a contrary effect on me." The temporary shelter afforded by the interlacing branches overhead was now beaten down by the strength of the storm, which descended in torrents. "Ah! you are afraid," he observed softly, drawing nearer to her. "It is for you," she responded, "The rain is no more to me than it is to a red squirrel, but you, poor canary bird, your yellow head should be safe in its own cage." This anxious, motherly tone brought a smile to the lips of the young man. A sudden thought struck his guide. Grasping his hand she drew him swiftly along until they reached the hollow trunk of an immense oak, into which she hastily thrust him. "There is not room for both," she declared, looking like a dripping naiad, as the rain-drops thickened about her. "Then there is not room for me," responded Edward, whose sense of chivalry rebelled at the idea of looking from a place of security upon an unprotected woman, exposed to the fury of the storm. He drew her reluctant form beside him, but she was impatient and ill at ease in her enforced shelter, as though she had been one of the untamed things of the wood, caught and prisoned against its will. Outside the rain fell fast, while within crouched this beautiful creature as remotely as possible from her human companion, and gazing longingly forth upon the wild elements of whose life her own life seemed to form a vital part. Her pulse beat fast in sympathy with the fast beating rain. Her large liquid eyes were dark as woodland pools. She did not pay her companion the compliment of being embarrassed in the slightest degree by his presence. Her only feeling was one of physical discomfort in her cramped position, and impatience with the man who could imagine that for her such protection was necessary. It crossed his mind that here was a veritable child of nature, untamed, untamable, not only in her habits and surroundings, her modes of life and thought, but in her very nature, in every fibre of her being, every emotion of her mind. Her superb unconsciousness chagrined and then irritated him. A beautiful woman might as well be a beautiful statue as to persist in behaving like one. A sudden rash desire took possession of the youth to test the quality of this superhuman indifference. The opportunity was tempting, the moment auspicious; he might never be so near her again. He laid one hand upon her arm, and bent his fair head till it reached her shoulder. Then he bestowed a lingering kiss upon the lovely curve of her cheek where it melted into