Stranger yet it was to see in the dark, moving near the
pine-wood fire, two feeble wandering lights, the eyes of some curious
deer that had come to gaze and wonder, and show its whereabouts by those
soft reflections.
And then, when he and his companions wanted venison, it was strange to
go forth into the forest in the dark, two of them bearing a great iron
pot slung upon a long rod, and heaped with blazing pine-cones. Then
several pairs of these luminous spots would be seen coming together, and
perhaps a dangerous couple would glare down from a tree, and a wounded
panther would come crashing into their midst.
After that, he went and spent Christmas in Florida. He had had frequent
letters from home and from his step-father. He wished to keep away till
a certain thing was settled one way or the other, but every letter
showed that it was still unsettled; the sea-nymph that he had been
wasting his heart upon had not yet decided to accept his brother's, but
there was every likelihood that she would.
As time went on, however, he felt happy in the consciousness that
absence was doing its work upon him, and that change had refreshed his
mind.
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