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166 me with such a mischievous twinkle of merriment in her laughing eyes, as if I deserved to be ridiculed for entertaining such an absurd idea even for a moment, that I felt quite disarmed, and, I confess, a little embarrassed.

You must have some weighty subjects occupying your mind," she said. "Why, you looked the picture of a philosopher coming down the slope, and the condition became you so admirably, that at first I thought it would be a serious wrong to break in on your soliloquy. However, I watched you till I became impatient; so I hope that you will pardon me, for I gave you what I considered to be a reasonable time to thresh the matter out."

"Nothing more weighty than that tradition you told me at the gathering in that charming valley recently," I answered. "I have been puzzling my brains over the fate of the descendants of the renegade lovers, and have been wondering if it were possible they might be identical with a race of people I have met, and whose early history is completely shrouded in the obscure clouds of mystery."

"I must tell you no more traditions," she said, "if they worry you so much. Why, you look quite fatigued."