"Where?" she asked, mischievously, as she laid her warm hand with a sudden grip on his.
"To a certain peak among the clouds, where you and I once went a thousand years ago."
Nan nestled a little closer—or perhaps it was the swaying of the coach that made him think she did—and softly said:
"You remember this road?"
"I've seen it a hundred times in my dreams since that wonderful day. It winds along the banks of the Swannanoa for twenty miles, always climbing higher and higher until the river becomes a limpid trout stream. We stop at the old road-house, stay all night, and next morning take the bridle path with the funny pack-horses and climb to the first mountain top, still following the little stream. We stoop to drink from the spring which is the river's source—a deep bold spring hung with long festoons of green moss and set with ferns and rhododendron——"
"Fine, Jimmy, fine!" she cried with girlish mockery. "Your geography lesson was perfect! You can walk home with me after school."
Stuart looked at her and broke into a laugh. Again they were boy and girl, and the only change he could see was that she was more splendidly beautiful at thirty-one than she had ever promised to be at fifteen.
The spirit of joy was resistless. He flung to the winds the last shred of conventional dignity as the coach rolled lazily over the rocky road, throwing them from side to side.
"You remember how shocked you were in this same seat, Jim, that day in the sweet long ago when the old coach threw me into your arms?"
"Yes, I felt that I was taking a mean advantage of you."