"
The artist concealed his embarrassment with difficulty; and, while
expressing his thanks and appreciation in rather formal words, studied her
face keenly. But she had tendered her gift with a spontaneous naturalness,
an unaffected kindliness, and an innocent disregard of conventionalities,
that would have disarmed a man with much less native gentleness than Aaron
King.
Leaving the basket of trout in his hand, she turned, and swung the empty
creel over her shoulder. Then, putting on her hat, she picked up her rod.
"Oh--are you going?" he said.
"You have finished your work for to-day," she answered
"But let me go with you, a little way."
She shook her head. "No, I don't want you."
"But you will come again?"
"Perhaps--if you won't stop work--but I can't promise--you see I never
know what I am going to do up here in the mountains," she answered
whimsically. "I might go to the top of old 'Berdo' in the morning; or I
might be here, waiting for you, when you come to paint."
He was putting his things in the box--thinking he would persuade her to
let him accompany her a little way; if she saw that he really would paint
no more. When he bent over the box, she was speaking.
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