She was eager in his praise, she would have delighted to show him to her new friend.
"You and he were both born at Glen Forest?" Lyttleton one day remarked, inquiringly.
"No; only I," Marian said, a slightly troubled look coming into her eyes; "I and the brothers and sisters who died very young. Kenneth is many years older, and it was when he was a babe that my parents came here to live."
"Ah? and where did they live before that? where was Kenneth born?"
"Somewhere in eastern Tennessee; I cannot tell you exactly, for there was no town, no settlement, just my father's cabin in a little clearing he had made in the forest, and another, a neighbor's, half a mile away."
Marian spoke hastily, with half-averted face and a perceptible shudder.
"Why that shudder, my sweet girl?" he asked, gently pressing her hand, which he had taken in his.
"I was thinking of the terrible occurrence that led my father and mother to abandon the spot," she said in low, tremulous tones; "an attack by the Indians in which several were killed. It is scarcely ever alluded to in the family and I never heard the full particulars."
"Then we will speak no more of it," he said, and began to talk of other things.
Some days later they were again alone together; they had been climbing the hills till quite weary, and were now resting, seated side by side upon a fallen tree, within sight of Glen Forest, the pretty mountain stream that flowed past it singing and dancing almost at their very feet.