hers, which was easily detected, and for
seven years I'd been trying to cure her of it, but no use. Oh, she was
always took out regular enough and well liked, but the gilded youth of
Red Gap never fought for her smiles. They'd take her to parties and
dances, turn and turn about, but they always respected her, which is the
greatest blight a man can put on one of us, if you know what I mean.
Every man at a party was always careful to dance a decent number of
times with Hetty and see that she got back to her seat; and wasn't it
warm in here this evening, yes, it was; and wouldn't she have a glass of
the punch--No, thank you--then he'd gallop off to have some fun with a
mere shallow-pated fool that had known how from the cradle. It was
always a puzzle to me, because Hetty dressed a lot better than most of
them, knowing what to wear and how, and could take a joke if it come
slow, and laid herself out to be amiable to one and all. I kind of think
it must be something about her mentality. Maybe it is too mental. I
can't put her to you any plainer than to say that every single girl in
town, young and old, just loved her, and not one of them up to this time
had ever said an unkind or feminine thing about her. I guess you know
what that would mean of any woman.

"Hetty was now coming twenty-nine--we never spoke of this, but I could
count back--and it's my firm belief that no man had ever proposed
marriage or anything else on earth to her. Wilbur Todd had once
endeavoured to hold her hand out on the porch at a country-club dance
and she had repulsed him in all kindness but firmly. She told him she
couldn't bring herself to permit a familiarity of that sort except to
the man who would one day lead her to the altar, which is something I
believe she got from writing to a magazine about a young girl's
perplexities. And here, in spite of her record, this poor thing had
dared to raise her eyes to none other than this Mr. Burchell Daggett.
There was something kind of grand and despairing about the impudence of
it when you remember these here trained efficiency experts she was
competing with. Yet so it was. She would drop in on me after school for
a cup of tea and tell me frankly how distinguished his manner was and
what shapely features he had and what fine eyes, and how there was a
certain note in his voice at times, and had I ever noticed that one
stubborn lock of hair that stuck out back of his left ear? Of course
that last item sett