It was bleak and drear. A raw, angry wind came out of the north and went raging through the woods, tearing the pretty clothing of the trees to pieces and rudely hurling the dust of the street in one's face. The sun got behind the clouds and in grief and dismay hid his face while this dismal looting went on unrebuked and unrestrained. But Nature is fickle, possibly because she is feminine. At all events, she can change both mind and conduct, and in short order. So ere long she came out of her November rage and sat down in still, mellow sunshine, and gathering her children about her, whispered beautiful stories in their ears; warmed them with her love and brightness; soothed their care-lined brows and filled their hearts with a sense of the nearness of the Giver of all good.

It was on one of these days of Indian summer that Steve cut loose from work and started off on a tramp. He worked in town; he rested in country.

He had put something like five miles of woodland and late fall meadow between himself and the distractions of city life, when looking adown a path that sloped gently to a brook he saw, sitting on a tree that lay athwart the stream and paddling her white feet in the sunny water, Nannie Branscome. His surprise robbed him of his reserve and he hastened to her.

“Are you lost, Miss Branscome?”

“Yes,” she answered calmly.

She still sat there, paddling her feet, with nothing of consternation or perplexity in her face or manner. All around her were the browns of a summer that had come and gone; heaps of dead leaves nestled close to the trees, mute witnesses of a lost beauty; while here and there an ox-eyed daisy glowed from out its somber company as a firefly shines through the dusk of twilight. In the midst of all this sat Nannie in her pretty suit trimmed in scarlet, looking like a bird of paradise amid a flock of sparrows and other soberly clad creatures. Indeed, she reminded one of a bird, with her head cocked on one side and her air—not bold, but saucy.

Steve stood on the bank of the creek, perplexed for a moment. Then he asked with a slight smile:

“What are you going to do about it?”

The girl lowered her head a trifle and looked out at him from 'neath her curls, but she said nothing.

“Let us go home, Miss Branscome.”

She continued looking at him without a word, and he returned her gaze as he stood there with a gentle dignity that had its effect upon her.

“Barefooted?” she asked.

“No. I am going to explore this creek for a little distance, and you can get ready while I'm gone.”

“But suppose my shoes and stockings have floated down the stream? What then?”

Steve was dismayed, but he maintained his quiet air.

“Suppose,” persisted Nannie.

Just then Steve caught a glimpse of a tiny shoe at the foot of a near tree.

“And suppose,” he said, “they have not, but are awaiting their owner over yonder?”

Nannie laughed and looked around and Steve walked on.

When he returned she was ready, and they set off together toward town.

“Were you really lost?” asked Steve.

“Yes. I've been wandering around for at least two hours.”

“How came you to go out there?” he asked.

“I was expected to go somewhere else,” she answered with one of her elfin looks.

Steve was silent. Mentally he was wondering if this was the mainspring of conduct in all women. He thought very likely it was. Mary often asked his advice and then always took her own way, and it was invariably opposite to the course he had indicated.

They had not gone much further, when, happening to look around for something, Nannie caught a glimpse of her dress skirt and saw that it was creased and stained with mud.

“There now! I've just ruined my gown!” she exclaimed, and then burst into passionate tears.

“Miss Branscome! don't!” said Steve, who was fairly startled out of his usual quiet into something akin to excitement. “Don't! I beg of you. Nannie! don't cry, my dear!”

He failed to notice how he had spoken; so did she, apparently.

“We can make it all right, I know,” he continued, but for a time she refused to be comforted.

“You would cry too, I guess, if you were in my place and would get such an awful scolding at home.”

“No doubt I would,” assented Steve in deep distress.

“I wish I were dead and buried under a landslide,” sobbed Nannie.

In the depth of her sorrow she wanted to delve deep into mother earth.

“Oh, no. Don't wish that! What should we do without you?” said Steve earnestly.

“Oh, you needn't to worry,” replied Nannie pettishly, the violence of her grief having spent itself. “Nothing so good as that is going to happen. I shall live to get home and have my head taken off, and stalk around as a torso ever afterward.”

“Now do let me see if I can't set things to rights,” said Steve. “You've no idea how handy I am in such matters.”

He proved the truth of his words by going to work upon the injured gown, and after patient effort bringing it out of its dilapidated condition in such shape that only a keen eye would detect any sign of mishap.

Nannie was delighted and, stimulated by the excitement attendant upon her rapid change of fortunes, became quite talkative.

“I wouldn't have minded it so much, but I have on one of my best gowns, and Aunt Frances makes such a fuss every time she has to buy me anything. She says it's of no use to spend on me. It don't amount to a row of pins.”

Steve looked at her inquiringly. In actual time he was many years her senior, but Nannie had been in society for a season now, and even young girls age fast there—too fast, by far.

“She means I don't bid fair to get married off well. I'm not very popular, you know.”

Still Steve was silent. Nannie was speaking in a language of which he was ignorant.

“I dressed this morning to go to Joe Harding's breakfast, but I hate him, and I went walking instead. Now I've got to see some of the girls who went and make up a lot of stuff about it at home, or Aunt Frances'll be awfully mad.”

Steve looked into the beautiful face of the young girl who was talking in this repellent fashion. Then he took her gently by the hand and said in a firm, kindly tone:

“Nannie, you must come out of all this.”

“How can I?” she asked. “I have no mother or father—no one who really cares. I suppose I'll marry Joe Harding some day. He wants me, and Aunt Frances keeps at me about it eternally, but I hate him.”

“You must not marry him,” said Steve firmly. “He is not a good man.”

“And he's awfully ugly, too, but he's rich, and he's one of the swell set. Ugh! but I do hate him!”

“Why are you going to marry him?”

“Why?” she asked, looking at him with straight, frank surprise. “I've got to. Nobody else wants me.”

The pettish look had passed from her face; so also had the world-wise expression. There was something in her present naÏve frankness that prevented it from seeming bold.

As he looked at her swift images of love and marriage flitted across his brain. Somehow his loneliness was borne in upon him, and with this realization there came as a sudden flash the consciousness that he could marry. Long ago he had put all this one side, and in his grief over the loss of mother and sister it had never once occurred to him that he was free. The knowledge almost overwhelmed him now, and in his bewilderment for the moment he lost sight of his ideal. Like most reticent men, he cherished an ideal. Since meeting Constance Leigh, unconsciously to himself that ideal had grown very like her. But now he was sitting beside a fascinating young girl—for fascinating she was to Steve, even in her brusqueness and plainness of speech; a mere child, as it were, who was without home and without the protection of love and parental care, and as he looked into her eyes, still wet with tears, he felt his heart go out to her.

“Listen to me, Nannie,” he said, taking her hand once more. “I am a very lonely man. I need a wife——”

“Come, ducky, come and be killed,” flashed through Nannie's mind.

“I think you need me and I'm sure I need you.”

“How?” thought Nannie; “fricasseed or boiled?”

“If you would let me I would take you and try——”

“Fry, you mean,” said Nannie mentally as he hesitated.

Then with a sudden whirl, peculiar to her gusty temperament, she said to herself:

“He's proposing, and I needn't marry that hideous creature!”

She caught her breath and pressed her hands together.

“Oh, if only I could escape from Joe Harding!” she exclaimed.

Something very holy in Steve's nature came up then and changed the man. No longer shy, no longer reserved, he bent toward Nannie without touching her and said:

“My dear, marriage is a gate at once solemn and beautiful. When it is used as a door of escape it opens into a dark forest abounding with terrible wild beasts and hideous crawling things, but if one opens it with love's key, I can't tell you what it leads to, for I have never been there, but I believe it is the gateway to the Elysium fields that lie just on the hither side of heaven.”

Nannie looked up into the grave eyes and saw something of tenderness, something of reverence there that was new to her. She had stepped into an unknown world and was awed. As she sat there all mockery and levity faded from her face, and in its place there crept a look of deep admiration and deep respect for this man, and something awoke in her soul.

She said not a word—she had no words for such as this—but by and by she put her hand into Steve's.

“For life, Nannie?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, and burst into tears.