until his ear almost touched the ground. Nellie watched his graceful
figure breathlessly, until, like a bow unbent, he stood suddenly erect
again, and beckoned to her without changing the direction of his face.
"What is it?" she asked eagerly.
"All right; I have found it," he continued, moving forward without
turning his head.
"But how? What did you kneel for?" He did not reply, but taking her hand
in his continued to move slowly on through the underbrush, as if
obeying some magnetic attraction. "How did you find it?" again asked
the half-awed girl, her voice unconsciously falling to a whisper. Still
silent, Low kept his rigid face and forward tread for twenty yards
further; then he stopped and released the girl's half-impatient hand.
"How did you find it?" she repeated sharply.
"With my ears and nose," replied Low gravely.
"With your nose?"
"Yes; I smelt it."
Still fresh with the memory of his picturesque attitude, the young man's
reply seemed to involve something more irritating to her feelings than
even that absurd anticlimax. She looked at him coldly and critically,
and appeared to hesitate whether to proceed. "Is it far?" she asked.
"Not more than ten minutes now, as I shall go."
"And you won't have to smell your way again?"
"No; it is quite plain now," he answered seriously, the young girl's
sarcasm slipping harmlessly from his Indian stolidity. "Don't you smell
it yourself?"
But Miss Nellie's thin, cold nostrils refused to take that vulgar
interest.
"Nor hear it? Listen!"
"You forget I suffer the misfortune of having been brought up under a
roof," she replied coldly.
"That's true," repeated Low, in all seriousness; "it's not your fault.
But do you know, I sometimes think I am peculiarly sensitive to water; I
feel it miles away. At night, though I may not see it or even know where
it is, I am conscious of it. It is company to me when I am alone, and
I seem to hear it in my dreams. There is no music as sweet to me as
its song. When you sang with me that day in church, I seemed to hear it
|