Her voice, though soft, was generally high-pitched, not like the whirl of wind through the trees, but like its sigh through the long grass, and came, perhaps, to the mountain girl from the effort to converse above the sound of these natural voices.

There was a tremor in her voice sometimes, and, when she was taken unawares, a sidelong look in her eyes.

There was something about her in these serious moods that laid hold of the imagination.

She had surely a well of strength which had been given for her own support and the solace of others at some future moment, only too terrible.

But not to-night, as she tripped along under the moonlight, did the consciousness of that moment overshadow her.
And what of Ralph, who strode solemnly by her side?
A change had come over him of late.