olk.

Then, remembering suddenly an old chest which held her mother's wedding
finery, she strained her fine young muscles as she dragged it out of
storage; and sitting on the floor beside it where the great blaze of
pine-knots in the big "mud-and-broke-rock" fireplace lighted it and her
with flickering brilliance, she went through it with reverent fingers,
searching, searching for such garments and such adornments as it might
hold to make her fit to meet the friends of the young lowlander who had
captured her imagination with his bravery, resource and courtesy.

There were a few things in the chest which pleased her, and she smiled
as she discovered them, smiled as she tried them on, smiled as she saw
the image wearing them in the cracked mirror by the side of the big
fireplace. She had to make experiments with dripping tallow dips before
she got a light which would enable her to get the full effect of an
ornate old poke-bonnet which was the chief treasure from the chest, but
finally she did so, and exclaimed in pleasure as she managed it.

It was, indeed, a charming picture which she saw there in the glass--a
face with rosy cheeks, bright eyes, red lips set off with softly waving
auburn hair and framed delightfully in the old arch of shirred red
silk--and when she took it off, at last, she was convinced that one, at
least, of her big problems had been solved. She had a bonnet, certainly,
which was as lovely as the finest thing that any bluegrass belle could
wear. There was not the slightest doubt that all its shirring was of
real, _real_ silk! She had run her fingers over it caressingly,
delighted by its sheen and gloss when she had been a little girl; now
she fondled it with loving touch, high hopes. Surely no young lady
visitor, even from the far off and to her mysterious bluegrass could
have anything much finer than that bonnet with its silken facings! She
tied the wide strings underneath her chin in a great, flaring bow, and
peeped forth from the cavernous depths of the arched "poke" with quite
unconscious coquetry, flirting, with the keenest relish and most
completely childish pleasure with the charming creature whom she saw
reflected on the little mirror's cracked, imperfect surface.

It was while she stood thus, innocently coquetting with her own
delightful picture, that a great plan for the plenishment of her
otherwise imperfect wardrobe popped into her active, searching mind.
Carefully she considered this,