, yet
big-hearted and lovable--and how pretty she is growing!"

"Pretty!" Abby exclaimed warmly. "She is more than pretty, she is
lovely; and there is a certain force and dignity about her, too, that
contrasts curiously with her piquant wit and coquettish ways. It would
be a bold man indeed who would attempt a familiarity with her."

Returning home after school one February afternoon, schoolmaster and
pupils found an unusual stir and commotion agitating the Rogers domain,
news having arrived that the neighbors would gather there that night
for a dance.

Soon after six o'clock, a loud hail from the stile block proclaimed the
first arrivals, a big sledload of merry folks. Others followed quickly,
until in half an hour the spacious family room was overflowing with
life and laughter and excited chatter. Hoods and wraps were quickly
thrown aside, rumpled dresses smoothed out, loosened ribbons
readjusted, refractory ringlets reduced to order, and presently the
sitting-room was deserted, and the entire company had assembled in the
loom-room across the yard, where the dance was to be held.

"Why do you wound me and slander yourself by such language?" Abner
Dudley asked, gloomily, in answer to Miss Patterson's request that he
leave her quietly in her corner, and choose some fairer, fresher,
merrier partner for the first dance. "I shall not dance at all unless
you favor me," he stoutly asserted.

"In that case, I suppose I must yield," Abby answered good-naturedly;
"I should hate to mar your pleasure of the first Kentucky dance you
ever attended," and she rose smilingly and took his arm.

A proud and happy man was Abner as they crossed the room to take their
places among the eager groups who were standing about impatiently
waiting while Mason Rogers fitted a new string to his fiddle.

"'Fairer than Rachel at the palmy well,
Fairer than Ruth amid the fields of corn,
Fair as the angel that said "hail," she seemed!'"

quoted Abner, bending his head to look into the face of the girl beside
him--the grandiloquence of the quotation and the blunt directness of
the flattery atoned for by the earnest sincerity of his voice and
glance.

Abby was indeed a fair and gracious vision as she stood there, straight
and lissome as a young palm-tree. The somber plainness of her winter
gown of dark merino and the soft, clinging texture of her muslin tucker
accentuated the delicate fairness of skin, the dainty perfection of
fea