Lo! as I came to the of the hill, the sun on the heights had     arisen,
The dew on the grass was shining, and white was the mist on the vale;
Like a on the wing of the dawn I sang; like a guiltless one freed
    from his prison,
As backward I gazed through the valley, and saw no one on my trail.
—L. Frank Tooker.
 
Spring, planting green and gold banners on old Virginia battle-fields, crossed the Potomac and occupied Washington.
 
Shirley Claiborne called for her horse and rode to greet the . The afternoon was keen and sunny, and she had turned impatiently from a tea, to which she was committed, to seek the open. The call of the outdoor gods sang in her blood. Daffodils and crocuses lifted yellow flames and ruddy torches from every dooryard. She had pinned a spray of arbutus to the lapel of her tan riding-coat; it to her of the blue horizons of the near Virginia hills. The young buds in the like a mist in the tree-tops. Towering over all, the incomparable gray climbed to the blue arch and brought it nearer earth. Washington, the center of man's hope, is also, in spring, the capital of the land of heart's desire.
 
With a trailing after her, Shirley rode toward Rock ,—that , murmuring, singing trifle of water that laughs day and night at the of the beautiful city, as though politics and statesmanship were the hugest joke in the world. The flag on the Austro-Hungarian embassy hung at half-mast and symbols of mourning fluttered from the entire front of the house. Shirley lifted her eyes gravely as she passed. Her thoughts flew at once to the scene at the house of the Secretary of State a week before, when von Marhof had learned of the death of his sovereign; and by association she thought, too, of Armitage, and of his, look and voice as he said:
 
"Long live the Emperor and King! God save Austria!"
 
Emperors and kings! They were as impossible today as a snowstorm. The grave ambassadors as they appeared at great Washington functions, wearing their decorations, always struck her as being particularly . It just now occurred to her that they were all linked to the crown and scepter; but she dismissed the whole matter and bowed to two dark ladies in a passing victoria with the quick little nod and bright smile that were the same for these titled members of the Spanish Ambassador's household as for the young daughters of a western senator, who democratically waved their hands to her from a doorstep.
 
Armitage came again to her mind. He had called at the Claiborne house twice since the Secretary's ball, and she had been surprised to find how she accepted him as an American, now that he was on her own soil. He , too, a certain stability from the fact that the Sandersons knew him; he was, indeed, an different person since the Montana Senator definitely connected him with an American landscape. She had kept her own counsel the scene on the dark deck of the King Edward, but it was not a thing lightly to be forgotten. She was half angry with herself this afternoon to find how Armitage came into her thoughts, and how the knife-thrust on the steamer deck kept in her mind and quickening her sympathy for a man of whom she knew so little; and she touched her horse impatiently with the crop and rode into the park at a gait that roused the groom to attention.
 
At a bend of the road Chauvenet and Franzel, the attaché, swung into view, mounted, and as they met, Chauvenet turned his horse and rode beside her.
 
"Ah, these American airs! This spring! Is it not good to be alive, Miss
Claiborne?"
"It is all of that!" she replied. It seemed to her that the day had not needed Chauvenet's praise.
 
"I had hoped to see you later at the Wallingford tea!" he continued.
 
"No teas for me on a day like this! The thought of being indoors is !"
 
She wished that he would leave her, for she had ridden out into the spring sunshine to be alone. He somehow did not appear to advantage in his riding-coat,—his were too perfect. She had really enjoyed his talk when they had met here and there abroad; but she was in no mood for him now; and she wondered what he had lost by the transfer to America. He ran on airily in French, speaking of the rush of great and small social affairs that marked the end of the season.
 
"Poor Franzel is indeed triste. He is taking the death of Johann Wilhelm quite hard. But here in America the death of an emperor seems less important. A king or a peasant, what does it matter!"
 
"Better ask the in yonder budding tree, Monsieur. This is not an hour for hard questions!"
 
"Ah, you are very cruel! You drive me back to poor, Franzel, who is indeed a funeral in himself."
 
"That is very sad, Monsieur,"—and she smiled at him with in her eyes. "My heart goes out to any one who is left to mourn—alone."
 
He gathered his and drew up his horse, lifting his hat with a perfect gesture.
 
"There are sadder blows than losing one's sovereign, Mademoiselle!" and he shook his bared head mournfully and rode back to find his friend.
 
She sought now her favorite bridle-paths and her heart was light with the sweetness and peace of the spring as she heard the rush and splash of the creek, saw the flash of wings and felt the mystery of life about her. The heart of a girl in spring is the home of dreams, and Shirley's heart with them, until her pulse thrilled and sang in quickening . The wistfulness of April, the dream of unfathomable things, shone in her brown eyes; and a girl with dreams in her eyes is the divinest work of the gods. Into this twentieth century, into the iron heart of cities, she still comes, and the clear, high stars of April nights and the moon of September are glad because of her.
 
The groom marveled at the sudden changes of gait, the that fell to a walk with the of mood in the girl's heart, the pauses that marked a moment of as she watched some green curving bank, or a of the mad little creek that sent a glory of spray whitely into the sunlight. It grew late and the shadows of afternoon crept through the park. The crowd had hurried home to escape the chill of the spring dusk, but she lingered on, reluctant to leave, and presently left her horse with the groom that she might walk alone beside the creek in a place that was beautifully wild. About her lay a narrow strip of young maples and beyond this the wide park road wound at the foot of a steep wooded cliff. The place was quiet save for the splash and of the creek.
 
Several minutes passed. Once she heard her groom speak to the horses, though she could not see him, but the charm of the place held her. She raised her eyes from the tumbling water before her and looked off through the . Then she drew back quickly, and clasped her riding-crop tightly. Some one had paused at the farther edge of the maple brake and dismounted, as she had, for a more intimate of the place. It was John Armitage, tapping his riding-boot idly with his crop as he leaned against a tree and viewed the miniature valley.
 
He was a little below her, so that she saw him quite distinctly, and caught a glimpse of his horse pawing, with arched neck, in the bridle-path behind him. She had no wish to meet him there and turned to steal back to her horse when a movement in the maples below caught her eye. She paused, fascinated and alarmed by the cautious stir of the undergrowth. The air was perfectly quiet; the was not caused by the wind. Then the head and shoulders of a man were disclosed as he on hands and knees, watching Armitage. His small head and big body as he crept forward suggested to Shirley some fantastic monster of legend, and her heart beat fast with terror as a knife flashed in his hand. He moved more rapidly toward the silent figure by the tree, and still Shirley watched wide-eyed, her figure tense and trembling, the hand that held the crop half raised to her lips, while the dark form rose and for a spring.
 
Then she cried out, her voice ringing clear and high across the little vale and sounding back from the cliff.
 
"Oh! Oh!" and Armitage leaped forward and turned. His crop fell first upon the raised hand, knocking the knife far into the trees, then upon the face and shoulders of the Servian. The fellow turned and fled through the maple tangle, Armitage after him, and Shirley ran back toward the bridge where she had left her groom and met him half-way hur............