ul creature
your eyes ever rested on! You must prepare yourself to be startled. Look
toward the door--at that tall girl standing with her hands behind her."

She was attired in a calico of flaunting pattern, and leaned against the
log wall in an indifferent attitude, regarding the company from under
the heavy lashes of her eyes, which had a look of stillness in them
which was yet not repose. There was something even secretive in her
expression, as if she watched them furtively for reasons of her own.
At her side stood a big, discontented-looking young man, who confronted
aggressively two or three other young men equally big, if not equally
discontented, who seemed to be arguing some point with him and
endeavoring to engage the attention of his companion. The girl, however,
simply responded to their appeals with an occasional smile, ambiguous,
if not scornful.

"How I wish I could hear them!" exclaimed Miss Noble.

It was her habit to utilize any material she chanced to find, and
she had really made her summer jaunt to North Carolina in search of
material, but she was not thinking of utilizing this girl, as she
managed to keep near her during the remainder of the evening. She had
merely found something to be keenly interested in, her interest in any
human novelty being, on occasion, intense. In this case her interest
increased instead of diminished. She found the girl comporting herself
in her natural position as belle, with a calm which was slightly
suggestive of "the noble savage." Each admirer seemed to be treated with
indifference alike, though there were some who, for reasons best known
to themselves, evidently felt that they stood more securely than the
rest. She moved through game and dance with a slow yet free grace; she
spoke seldom, and in a low, bell-like monotone, containing no hint of
any possible emotional development, and for the rest, her shadow of a
disdainful smile seemed to stand her in good stead. Clearly as she
stood out from among her companions from the first, at the close of the
evening she assumed a position actually dramatic.

The big young mountaineer, who, despite his discontent, was a very
handsome fellow indeed, had held his own against his rivals stubbornly
during the evening, but when, after the final dance, he went in search
of his charge, he found that he was not first.

She had fallen into her old attitude against the wall, her hands
behind her, and was listening to the appeal of a