her mother. "He calls
hisself Iry Combs."

"How-dye!" said the girl, but the slight man rose and came forward to
shake hands. She flashed a frown at her mother a moment later, behind
the stranger's back; teachers boarded around and he might be there for
a week and perhaps more. The teacher was mountain born and bred, but he
had been to the Bluegrass to school, and he had brought back certain
little niceties of dress, bearing, and speech that irritated the girl.
He ate slowly and little, for he had what he called indigestion, whatever
that was. Distinctly he was shy, and his only vague appeal to her was in
his eyes, which were big, dark, and lonely.

It was a disgrace for Allaphair to have reached her years of
one-and-twenty without marrying, and the disgrace was just then her
mother's favorite theme. Feeling rather poorly, the old woman began on
it that afternoon. Allaphair had gone out to the woodpile and was
picking up an armful of firewood, and the mother had followed her. Said
Allaphair:

"I tell you agin an' agin I hain't got no use fer 'em--a-totin' guns an'
knives an' a-drinkin' moonshine an' fightin' an' breakin' up meetin's
an' lazin' aroun' ginerally. An' when they ain't that way," she added
contemptuously, "they're like that un thar. Look at him!" She broke into
a loud laugh. Ira Combs had volunteered to milk, and the old cow had just
kicked him over in the mud. He rose red with shame and anger--she felt
more than she saw the flash of his eyes--and valiantly and silently he
went back to his task. Somehow the girl felt a pang of pity for him, for
already she saw in his eyes the telltale look that she knew so well in
the eyes of men. With his kind it would go hard; and right she was to
the detail.

She herself went to St. Hilda to work and learn, but one morning she
passed his little schoolhouse just as he was opening for the day. From
a gable the flag of her country waved, and she stopped mystified. And
then from the green, narrow little valley floated up to her wondering
ears a song. Abruptly it broke off and started again; he was teaching
the children the song of her own land, which she and they had never
heard before. It was almost sunset when she came back and the teacher
was starting for home. He was ahead of her--she knew he had seen her
coming--but he did not wait for her, nor did he look back while she was
following him all the way home. And next Sunday he too went to church,
and after meeting he