delicious contrast. All these
things, and more, Barbara knew because a dozen times a day her mirror
swore them true. That she was elusively, teasingly, judicially, calmly
distracting she knew because, ever since she could remember, men had
told her so with varying degrees of bitter humour. She accepted the
fact, and carried herself in all circumstances as a queen surrounded by
an indefinite number of rights matured to her selection.

After her plain old backwoods aunt had admired and exclaimed over the
butterfly so unexpectedly developed from the brown tailor-made
chrysalis, Barbara determined to take a walk. She knew that over through
that cool, fascinating forest, only a half-mile away, dwelt the Adamses.
The Adamses, too, were only of the woods people, but they were human,
and chiffon was chiffon, in the wilderness as in the towns. So Barbara
announced her intention, and stepped into the sunlight.

The parasol completed her sense of happiness. She raised it, and
slanted it over her shoulder, and drew one of its round tips across her
face, playing out to herself a pretty little comedy as she sauntered
deliberately down the trail between the stumps and tangled blackberry
vines of the clearing. She tilted her chin, and glanced shyly from
beneath the brim of her big hat at the solemn stumps, and looked just as
pretty as she possibly could for the benefit of the bold, noisy finches.
With her light summer dress and her picture-hat and her open-work
stockings and her absurd little high-heeled, silver-buckled shoes she
had somehow regained the feminine self-confidence which her thick boots
and sober brown woods dress had filched from her. For the first time in
this whimsical visit to a new environment she was completely happy. Dear
little Barbara; she was only eighteen.

Pretty soon the trail entered the great, cool, green forest. Barbara
closed her parasol and carried it under one arm, while with the same
hand she swept her skirt clear of the ground. She was now a _grande
marquise_ in the Forest of Fontainebleau. Through little round holes in
the undergrowth she could see away down between the trees to dashes of
sunlight and green shadows. Always Barbara conducted herself as though,
in the vista, a cavalier was about to appear, who would sweep off his
plumed hat in a bow of knightly adoration. She practised the courtesy in
return, sinking on one little high-pointed heel with a downward droop of
her pretty head and an upwa