“And you shall be again, my young friend,” wringing his hand warmly. “Mary,” to the elder lady, “this is Dr. Martin, a friend of Dan Joyce’s. Doctor, this is my wife. And this,” turning to the girl, “is my daughter.”
Bertie took her courteously-proffered hand, and held it for one instant in his. He looked down, down into those Irish gray eyes, where truth and innocence and purity lay like gems beneath crystal waters; he gazed with a wild rapture upon the beauteous face that had haunted him day and night in its rosy radiance, and then with a muttered exclamation was about to turn away when O’Hara exclaimed:
“Miss Darcy looks as if she had seen you before.”
“Miss Darcy?” cried Bertie.
“Yes; you wouldn’t have her Mrs. Darcy, would you?”
Oh! the weight lifted off his heart. Oh! how gloriously shone out the sun, how blue was the sky, how radiant the flowers, how sweet the song of the mountain thrush, how delightful everything. The great black shadow which had hung over him like a pall had passed away before the dayshine of her presence, and, borne on that sunlight, came the message to his heart that Kitty Darcy was to be wooed, and—possibly to be won.
Kirwan’s pleasure knew no bounds as he clasped the hand of Dick Darcy.
“What a sorry opinion you would have had of the old country if you had only known its hospitality through the medium of a hotel, Mr. Kirwan!” laughed Darcy as the party mounted their shaggy mountain ponies.
Of course Bertie rode beside Miss Darcy, and descanted not as eloquently as he could have wished upon the glorious bits of scenery that revealed themselves at every turn in the Gap. He spoke glowingly of home, of the lordly Hudson, the dreamy Catskills, the White Mountains, and the Yosemite.
“Oh! isn’t that gloriously gloomy,” cried Miss Darcy, as they emerged from the granite-walled Gap to the ridge overlooking the Black Valley to the right, stretching away in gray sadness, locked in the embraces of mountains standing in ebon relief against the blue yet lustreless sky.