Waterbury evening Democrat., 1894-05-01
CHAPTER XVIII.

| CW1XC Q6f ana the Olu CO1OTI6SS A11e uS day but one after Jubilee's warning she had found line, likewise ambushed in field flowers, upon her dressing table, which said:
 "Keep a stout heart There is no dan ger yet that the old tree will be cut down.
 There was neither date nor signature, but none was needed to tell her whence it came Intuitively she knew that her message had gone straight to Allen Fauntleroy, and this was his answer. Trusting in him, her heart was at rest. | She could let herself be amused with what went on about her; could laugh in girlish mirth over Holtham's droll stories; listen unweariedly to all her aunt could tell her of dead and gone Dares, who once had ruffied it with the best; freeze Hawkins utterly upon the rare occasions when he ventured to ad- dress her-above everything, sun her vanity in the light of Royal Cleve's eyes.
 Though all untaught, she was wise | enough, woman enough, to know that she attracted him as perhaps no other ] had ever done. No day shone but brought him to Exeter Often indeed midnight l struck ere he took himself away. In spite of all, though, his wooing made scant headway Often upon the home ward way MT Cleve swore round1y at | himself as both fool and coward thus to falter and stand abashed before this girl, who had no arts of fence save those of natures providing.
 It was ridiculous, worse, he told him. self, that he, who had made love half the world over, who had been courted and caressed by dark women and fair, for whom more than one beauty had dim med her sweet eyes, should find himself thus taken aback by this slip of a girl, whose guard of delicate haughtiness he could neither pass over nor break down. A hundred times he had begun to tell his love outright; as many times his speech had been deftly turned aside or passed over as jest.
 This must not be, could not, should not endure Aside from his own head long passion, there was Hawkins in the background, inexorably urging him to make hay while the sun shOne'' and limiting more than darkly the dangers of delay. He must speak out, speak at once, and under such conditions as to make refusal out of the question.
 Hawkins easily supplied them. Upon his motion, Mrs. Townley agreed that all her household should go for day. S excursion into the heart of the disputed iron tract, where work had SO long ceased that for the most part everything was picturesquely ruinous It was re- zion of steep thickly wooded hills, seam ed through and through with hollows so dark and narrow that in them midday was as twilight. A labyrinth of paths and cartways ran hither and yon, many overgrown to the merest trace, others showing still scant signs of use by the l hill folk, squatters whose cabins clung here and there to hillside or sent blue thready smoke up from some darkling hollow.
 Once all the region had been alive with noise of axes cutting timber for the charcoal pit, ring and rattle of chain, hoof, wheel, shouts from hill to hill, singing and laughter of bremen working at the breasts in full daylight. The old folk remembered it we'll They had told the younger ones over and over of the SOOu O1Gl I1l11cS Wue11 WOIh 14OuGJ were plenty, when iron, king of metals, | went out and came back silver and gold. What wonder if the remnant who clung still to the tract, getting bare subsist- ence as best they might, sighed for the good times gone, the friends who went with them, or that their sons, trained in penury's hard school, were easily stirred to anger against the man who, they were told, stood needlessly betwixt them and the return of that golden age?
 No such thought, such knowledge, came to Dare as she rode through the sylvan maze with the tall handsome stranger close at her bridle rein. All the party were on horseback, and as soon as they were well within the hills Flaw kins and Cleve had fallen to disputing as to which was the better, more pictur- esque route to the old forge, the days appointed rendezvous. Both had recent ly spent days there ill exploration, and each contended stoutly for the way of his choice Dare herself had settled the matter by saying, with a delicious smile:
 ''There is nothing for it but to divide and conquer both routes. Aunt Mel, we will go with MT. Cleve MT. Hawkins can take MT. Holtham and Patsey and the dinner, and we will see who gets there first and easiest.
 "Just what was about to propose, " Cleve said, with quick flash of the eye. Mrs. Townley demurred.
 I'm afraid to risk it, she said, shaking her head. ''This is fearful place to get lost in. You might wander for days on one hill of these coalings and never.f1nd your way out. I am sure MT. Clevo thinks he knows the way per fectly, but I had rather trust MT. Flaw kins
 Well, had not, |" Dare said willful- ly. Come, Patsey. We will follow him. Aunt Mel, if we hear you crying in the wilderness, we will come and find you D That we will," Cleve said trium- phantly, touching his hat to the others and turning the horses heads into a track running almost at right angles to that they had been following. A little way farther it climbed sharp hill, which Patsey's mule utterly refused to breast, though he showed by turning completely around that he was willing enough to rejoin the other party.
 Patsey looked at the couple in front of her rapidly vanishing over the hills crest, saying to herself:
 Spec dem two be much better pleased 'dout me an wid me- Anyway Pm gwine back. Miss Dare des called me ter keep dat rlan fin sayin she want him ter court her, when de good Lord knows hit pear llil' he des CT dyin ter do hit, an I gwine gib in enc chance eff he don't nebbcr sit 10 -, q one"
 With that Gho t-ott-ti Lack, following leisurely the track ci the other party, and so it came about that when, an hour later, Dare drew rein after climbing along sharp hill she found herself in it's high solitude alone with Royal Cleve.
 Upon the very crest of it a little clearing made sGnshiny cup in the l dark forest. On one hand the ground fell so sharply away that through the rift in the trees you could see miles and miles