ems to indicate another conflagration, with
Cupid as the incendiary."

The youth colored. "Oh, nonsense!"

"Be more careful, Frank," his friend urged, becoming serious. "She's a
dear, simple little thing, not used to the ways of the world. Don't let
her get too fond of you."

"What do you mean?"

"See here, my boy. I know you young fellows don't want an old fool, like
me, interfering with your affairs, but I've taken that little girl right
to my heart. I tell you, Frank, she's too brave and true to be trifled
with. She's not that kind."

Layson flushed hotly. The intimation, even from the Colonel, was more
than he could bear with patience. "Stop!" he cried. "You've said enough.
What you mean to insinuate is false!"

The Colonel rose, embarrassed. The youth's earnestness astonished him.
Could it be possible that this scion of an ancient bluegrass family,
this leader of the younger set in one of the most exclusive circles in
Kentucky, could really be thinking seriously of that untutored
mountain-girl? "My boy, forgive me!" he exclaimed. "I--I didn't
understand. I never dreamed there could be anything--er--serious. I
thought, of course--"

Frank paced the floor with nervous tread. Other things than the
impending contest for the Ashland Oaks had been worrying him of late.
Since he had left the mountains there had scarcely been a moment, waking
or sleeping, when the face of the sweet mountain girl who had fascinated
him among her rocks and forests, and had come down to the bluegrass to
save not only his life but the life of his beloved mare, had not been
vividly before him. Untutored she might be, uncouth of speech, unlearned
in all those things, in fact, which the women he had known had ever held
most valuable, but her compensating virtues had begun to take upon
themselves their actual values--values so overwhelming in their
magnitude that her few lackings grew to seem continually less important
in his mind.

"Never mind, Colonel," he said slowly, "you can't say anything to me but
what I've said, over and over again, to myself. I know she's ignorant
and uncultured. I know what it would mean if I should marry her. If I
were to choose for a wife a fashionable girl, whose life is centered in
the luxury which surrounds her, the world would smile approval; but for
Madge, with her true, brave heart and noble thoughts, there would be
only sneers and insults because she happened to be born up there in the
mountains. That