 her what he knew, and, amongst other things, about the avalanches. He was able to point out where some had fallen the previous year. He stopped in the middle of his conversation to tell her to put up her umbrella.

"I can't trouble to hold it for you," he said; "but I don't mind opening it. The sun is blazing to-day, and you will get your eyes bad if you are not careful. That would be a pity, for you seem to me rather better lately."

"What a confession for you to make of any one!" said she.

"Oh, I don't mean to say that you will ever get well," he added grimly. "You seem to have pulled yourself in too many directions for that. You have tried to be too alive; and, now you are obliged to join the genus cabbage."

"I am certainly less ill than I was when I first came," she said; "and I feel in a better frame of mind altogether. I am learning a good deal in sad Petershof."

"That is more than I have done," he answered.

"Well, perhaps you teach instead," she said. "You have taught me several things. Now, go on telling me about the country people. You like them?"

"I love them," he said simply. "I know them well, and they know me. You see I have been in this district so long now, and have walked about so much, that the very wood cutters know me; and the drivers give me lifts on their piles of timber."

"You are not surly with the poor people, then?" said Bernardine; "though I must say I cannot imagine you being genial. Were you ever genial, I wonder?"

"I don't think that has ever been laid to my charge," he answered.

The time passed away pleasantly. The Disagreeable Man was scarcely himself to-day; or was it that he was more like himself? He seemed in a boyish mood; he made fun out of nothing, and laughed with such young fresh laughter, that even August, the grave blue-spectacled driver, was moved to mirth. As for Bernardine, she had to look at Robert Allitsen several times to be sure that he was the same Robert Allitsen she had known two hours ago in Petershof. But she made no remark, and showed no surprise, but met his merriness
