ankles--she wore her dresses
very short. She was quicker in speech, lighter in movement and manner than
the other girls. Mary Dusak was broad and brown of countenance, slightly
marked by smallpox, but handsome for all that. She had beautiful chestnut
hair, coils of it; her forehead was low and smooth, and her commanding
dark eyes regarded the world indifferently and fearlessly. She looked bold
and resourceful and unscrupulous, and she was all of these. They were
handsome girls, had the fresh color of their country up-bringing, and in
their eyes that brilliancy which is called,--by no metaphor, alas!--"the
light of youth."

D'Arnault played until his manager came and shut the piano. Before he left
us, he showed us his gold watch which struck the hours, and a topaz ring,
given him by some Russian nobleman who delighted in negro melodies, and
had heard d'Arnault play in New Orleans. At last he tapped his way
upstairs, after bowing to everybody, docile and happy. I walked home with
Antonia. We were so excited that we dreaded to go to bed. We lingered a
long while at the Harlings' gate, whispering in the cold until the
restlessness was slowly chilled out of us.

VIII

THE Harling children and I were never happier, never felt more contented
and secure, than in the weeks of spring which broke that long winter. We
were out all day in the thin sunshine, helping Mrs. Harling and Tony break
the ground and plant the garden, dig around the orchard trees, tie up
vines and clip the hedges. Every morning, before I was up, I could hear
Tony singing in the garden rows. After the apple and cherry trees broke
into bloom, we ran about under them, hunting for the new nests the birds
were building, throwing clods at each other, and playing hide-and-seek
with Nina. Yet the summer which was to change everything was coming nearer
every day. When boys and girls are growing up, life can't stand still, not
even in the quietest of country towns; and they have to grow up, whether
they will or no. That is what their elders are always forgetting.

It must have been in June, for Mrs. Harling and Antonia were preserving
cherries, when I stopped one morning to tell them that a dancing pavilion
had come to town. I had seen two drays hauling the canvas and painted
poles up from the depot.

That afternoon three cheerful-looking Italians strolled about Black Hawk,
looking at everything, and with them was a dark, stout woman who wore a
long gold