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Miss Carrington stepped back and gathered up an embroidered shawl of Chinese silk which had slipped into a tiny roll at the back of her chair. She hung it over her arm; its long fringe and heavily embroidered flowers brushed Kit’s hand as he held the door open for her to pass through it. He returned to the fireplace and leaned upon the mantel, waiting for young Peter with a heaviness of heart unlike himself.

“A pilgrimage to gain her sight!” thought Kit. “Little Anne’s advice was not half bad. She would not agree to all this; she is as untainted by the world as a blossom in an old-time garden!”

The smile that made his rugged young face so gentle showed that the “she” of this encomium was not little Anne Berkley.

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CLEAVEDGE had received its name from the steep sides of the river which cleft its rocky bank formation. It may have been a misapprehension of a word—strangers spelt it “Cleavage” till they learned better—or the settlers who christened it may have meant to embody in the word the picturesque cleft edges of the cliffs. Cleavedge, with its misspelling, it remained through the growth of the village into a prosperous little city.