its short
waist, close sleeves, and scant skirt, reaching to the instep, the
immemorial fashion of the hills, were less of a grotesque rusticity
since there was prevalent elsewhere a vogue of quasi-Empire modes, of
which the cut of her garb was reminiscent. A saffron kerchief about her
throat had in its folds a necklace of over-cup acorns in three strands,
and her hair, meekly parted on her forehead, was of a lustrous brown,
and fell in heavy undulations on her shoulders. There was a delicate
but distinct tracery of blue veins in her milky-white complexion, and
she might have seemed eminently calculated for meddling disastrously
with the peace of mind of the mountain youth were it not for the
preoccupied expression of her eyes. Though large, brown and long-lashed,
they were full of care and perplexity, and a frowning, disconcerted line
between her eyebrows was so marked as almost to throw her face out of
drawing. Troubled about many things, evidently, was Meddlesome. She
could not even delegate the opening of a basket that her little brother
had brought and placed beside the camp-fire.

"Don't, Gran'dad," she exclaimed suddenly, stepping alertly
forward--"_don't_ put that loaf in that thar bread-box; the box 'pears
ter be damp. Leave the loaf in the big basket till ter-morrer. It'll eat
shorter then, bein' fraish-baked. They kin hev these biscuits fer
supper,"--dropping on one knee and setting forth on the cloth, from the
basket on her arm, some thick soggy-looking lumps of dough,--"I baked
some dodgers, too--four, six, eight, ten,"--she was counting a dozen
golden-brown cates of delectable aspect--"knowin' they would hone fer
cornmeal arter huntin' an' nuthin' else nohow air fitten ter eat with
feesh or aigs. Hev you-uns got any aigs?" She sprang up, and, standing
on agile tiptoe, peered without ceremony into their wagon. Instantly she
recoiled with a cry of horrified reproach. "Thar's ants in yer
short-sweetenin'! How _could_ you-uns let sech ez that happen?"

"Oh, surely not," exclaimed Purcell, hastening to her side. But the fact
could not be gain-said; the neglected sugar was spoiled.

Meddlesome's unwarranted intrusion into the arcana of their domestic
concerns disclosed other shortcomings. "Why n't ye keep the top on yer
coffee-can? Don't ye know the coffee will lose heart, settin' open?" She
repaired this oversight with a deft touch, and then proceeded: "We-uns
ain't got no short-sweetenin' at our house, but