. A. W. O. L. for him--if I perish
for it!"

"What--what does that mean?"

"Absent With-Out Leave, as they set
it down in the Army!"

Mischief leaped to the Henkyl Hunter's
eye.

He beckoned Peagreen from the grass
to follow him. A whisper in the tender-foot's
ear and down the winding sod-steps
of the cliff they scrambled!

Pem knew that she ought to call them
back; knew it from the white parting at
the side of her throbbing little head to
the toe of her satin slipper tumultuously
beating the ground, as she sank down, an
orchid amid her chiffons, to watch.

But it was a moment when the spice of
her chowchow name had all spilled over;
when the Vain Elf which, according to her
father, slept in the shadow of the Wise Woman,
was broadly--mutinously--awake.

The boat had drawn in alongside the
decked float now.

[[225]]

p224 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p225w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p226

v?