pearance certainly did not, to her, convey the thought of
strength--and manhood, there among the mountains, is thought to find its
first and last expression through its muscle; yet, for some reason,
although her first glance made her think he was a puny creature, she
neither scorned nor pitied him. He was, perhaps, too smoothly dressed,
too carefully shaved; the gun he had laid down so carelessly had too
much "bright work" on it--but on the whole, she liked him. A city maiden
might have well been dazzled by the really handsome chap. This simple
country girl was not--but, on the whole, she liked him.

Her hand which held the spelling-book dropped, unconsciously, so that
the open pages of the volume were revealed, upside down, against her
knee.

"Studying your lessons?" he inquired, quite casually, good-naturedly,
coming nearer.

Again her disappointment rushed upon her. Impulsively she told him of
it.

"Oh," said she, "I don't know how! I bought me this yere book down in
th' settlement, an' thought I'd learn things outen it. But how'm I goin'
to learn? I can't make nothin' out of it to get a start with."

Instantly the pathos of this situation, not its humor, made appeal to
him.

"Isn't there a school here?" he inquired.

"Nearest school is twenty mile acrost, over on Turkey Creek," she said
briefly. "Oncet there was a nearer one, but teacher was a Hatfield, and
McCoys got him, of course. This was McCoy kentry 'fore they all got so
killed off. He ought to 'a' knowed better than come over here to teach."

This casual reference to a famous feud--news of whose infamy had spread
far, far beyond the mountains which had hatched it--from the lips of one
so young and lovely (for he had long ago admitted to himself that as she
stood there she was lovelier than any being he had ever seen before)
appalled Frank Layson, son of level regions, graduate of Harvard, casual
sportsman, amateur mountaineer, who had come to look over his patrimony
and the country round about.

"Ah--yes," said he, and frowned. And then: "It leaves you in hard luck,
though, doesn't it, if you want to learn and can't," said he.

"It sartin does, for--oh, I _do_ hanker powerful to learn!"

"May I stay here by the fire with you a while and get warm, too," he
asked. (The unaccustomed exercise of tramping through the mountains had
kept him in a fever heat all day.)

"An' welcome," she said cordially, moving aside a bit, so that he could
approach wit