much against her will,
Johnnie's face flushed deeply.

"I reckon I couldn't," she answered evasively. "Hit's a long ways
up--and--hit's a long ways up."

"And yet you're going to walk it--after a week's work here in the mill?"
persisted Stoddard. "You'd better tell me where they grow, and let me go
up in my car."

"I wish't I could," said Johnnie, embarrassed. "But you'd never find it
in the world. They isn't one thing that I could tell you to know the
place by: and you have to leave the road and walk a little piece--oh,
it's no use--and I don't mind, I'd just love to go up there and get the
flowers for you."

"Are you the new girl?" inquired a voice at Johnnie's shoulder.

They turned to find a squat, middle-aged man regarding them dubiously.

"Yes," answered Johnnie, rising. "I've been waiting quite a while."

"Well, come this way," directed the man and, turning, led her away. Down
the hall they went, then up a flight of wooden stairs which carried them
to a covered bridge, and so to the upper story of the factory.

"That's an unusual-looking girl." Old Andrew MacPherson made the comment
as he received the papers from Stoddard's hands.

"The one I was speaking to in the hall?" inquired Stoddard rather
unnecessarily. "Yes; she seems to have an unusual mind as well. These
mountain people are peculiar. They appear to have no idea of class, and
therefore are in a measure all aristocrats."

"Well, that ought to square with your socialistic notions," chaffed
MacPherson, sorting the work on his desk and pushing a certain portion
of it toward Stoddard. "Sit down here, if you please, and we'll go over
these now. The girl looked a good deal like a fairy princess. I don't
think she's a safe topic for susceptible young chaps like you and me,"
the grizzled old Scotchman concluded with a chuckle. "Your socialistic
hullabaloo makes you liable to foregather with all sorts of
impossible people."

Gray shook his head, laughing, as he seated himself at the desk beside
the other.

"Oh, I'm only a theoretical socialist," he deprecated.

"Hum," grunted the older man. "A theoretical socialist always seemed to
me about like a theoretical pickpocket--neither of them stands to do
much harm. For example, here you are, one of the richest young fellows
of my acquaintance, living along very contentedly where every tenet you
profess to hold is daily outraged. You're not giving away your money.
You take a healthy interest in a good