new I had a
muscular strength he could not break. I disliked him at first on
Marjie's account; and when she grew accustomed to his presence and
almost forgot her fear, I detested him. And never did I dislike him so
much before as on this summer morning when we sat about the shady
veranda of the Cambridge House. Nobody else, however, gave any heed to
the Indian boy picturesquely idling there on the blue-grass.

Down the street came Lettie Conlow and Mary Gentry with Marjory Whately,
all chatting together. They turned at the tavern oak and came up the
flag-stone walk toward the veranda. I could not tell you to-day what my
lady wears in the social functions where I sometimes have the honor to
be a guest. I am a man, and silks and laces confuse me. Yet I remember
three young girls in a frontier town more than forty years ago. Mary
Gentry was slender--"skinny," we called her to tease her. Her dark-blue
calico dress was clean and prim. Lettie Conlow was fat. Her skin was
thick and muddy, and there was a brown mole below her ear. Her black,
slick braids of hair were my especial dislike. She had no neck to speak
of, and when she turned her head the creases above her fat shoulders
deepened. I might have liked Lettie but for her open preference for me.
Everybody knew this preference, and she annoyed me exceedingly. This
morning she wore a thin old red lawn cut down from her mother's gown. A
ruffle of the same lawn flopped about her neck. As they came near, her
black eyes sought mine as usual, but I saw only the floppy red
ruffle--and Marjie. Marjie looked sweet and cool in a fresh starched
gingham, with her round white arms bare to the elbows, and her white
shapely neck, with its dainty curves and dimples. The effect was
heightened by the square-cut bodice, with its green and white gingham
bands edged with a Hamburg something, narrow and spotless. How unlike
she was to Lettie in her flimsy trimmings! Marjie's hair was coiled in a
knot on the top of her head, and the little ringlets curved about her
forehead and at the back of her neck. Somehow, with her clear pink
cheeks and that pale green gown, I could think only of the wild roses
that grew about the rocks on the bluff this side of the Hermit's Cave.

Marjie smiled kindly down at Jean as she passed him. There was always a
tremor of fear in that smile; and he knew it and gloried in it.

"Good-morning, Jean," she said in that soft voice I loved to hear.

"Good-morning, Star-fa