e's.

"Let me do it for you, and part it straight," Johnnie remonstrated.

"Aw, hit'll never be seen on a gallopin' hoss," returned Mandy
carelessly. "Everybody'll be so tuck up a-watchin' you that they won't
have time to notice is my hair parted straight, nohow."

"But you're not a galloping horse," objected Johnnie, laughing and
clutching the comb away from her. "You've got mighty pretty hair, Mandy,
if you'd give it a chance. Why, it's curly! Let me do it up right for
you once."

So the thin, graying ringlets were loosened around the meagre forehead,
and indeed Mandy's appearance was considerably ameliorated.

"There--isn't that nice?" inquired Johnnie, turning her companion around
to the glass and forcing her to gaze in it--a thing Mandy always
instinctively avoided.

"I reckon I've looked worse," agreed the tall woman unenthusiastically;
"but Miss Lyddy ain't carin' to have ye fix up much. I get sort of
feisty and want to dav-il her by makin' you look pretty. Wish't you
would wear that breas'-pin o' mine, an' them rings an' beads I borried
from Lizzie for ye. You might just as well, and then nobody'd know you
from one o' the swells."

Johnnie shook her fair head decidedly. Talk of borrowing things brought
a reminiscent flush to her cheek.

"I'm just as much obliged," she said sweetly. "I'll wear nothing but
what's my own. After a while I'll be able to afford jewellery, and
that'll be the time for me to put it on."

Presently came Mavity Bence bringing the treasured footwear.

"I expect they'll be a little tight for me," Johnnie remarked somewhat
doubtfully; the slippers, though cheap, ill-cut things, looked so much
smaller than her heavy, country-made shoes. But they went readily upon
the arched feet of the mountain girl, Mandy and the poor mother looking
on with deep interest.

"I wish't Lou was here to see you in 'em," whispered Mavity Bence. "She
wouldn't grudge 'em to you one minute. Lord, how pretty you do look,
Johnnie Consadine! You're as sightly as that thar big wax doll down at
the Company store. I wish't Lou _could_ see you."

The dance was being given in the big hall above a store, which Miss
Lydia hired for these functions of her Uplift Club. The room was
half-heartedly decorated in a hybrid fashion. Miss Lydia had sent down a
rose-bowl of flowers; and the girls, being encouraged to use their own
taste, put up some flags left over from last Fourth of July. When
Johnnie and Mandy Meacham--