o his proper position.

"Why should I?" he said again. "It is no concern of mine."

Then for the first time he noticed the manner in which she had striven
to dress her hair in the style of her model, Rebecca Noble, and this
irritated him unendurably. He waved his hand toward it with a gesture of
distaste.

"Don't do that again," he said. "That is not becoming at least "--though
he was angrily conscious that it was.

She bent over the spring with a hint of alarm in her expression.

"Aint it?" she said, and the eager rapidity with which she lifted her
hands and began to alter it almost drew a smile from him despite his
mood.

"I done it like hern," she began, and stopped suddenly to look up at
him. "You know her," she added; "they're at Harney's. Father said ye'd
went to see her jest as soon as ye got here."

"I know her," was his short reply.

He picked up the drinking-gourd and turned away.

"Good-night," he said.

"Good-night."

At the top of the rocky incline he looked back at her.

She was kneeling upon the brink of the spring, her sleeve pushed up to
her shoulder, her hand and arm in the water, dipping for the fragment of
looking-glass.

It was really not wholly inconsistent that he should not directly
describe the interview in his next meeting with his betrothed. Indeed,
Rebecca was rather struck by the coolness with which he treated the
subject when he explained that he had seen the girl and found her beauty
all it had been painted.

"Is it possible," she asked, "that she did not quite please you?"

"Are you sure," he returned, "that she quite pleases _you?_"

Rebecca gave a moment to reflection.

"But her beauty"--she began, when it was over.

"Oh!" he interposed, "as a matter of color and curve and proportion she
is perfect; one must admit that, however reluctantly."

Rebecca laughed.

"Why 'reluctantly?'" she said.

It was his turn to give a moment to reflection.

His face shadowed, and he looked a little disturbed.

"I don't know," he replied at length; "I give it up."

He had expected to see a great deal of the girl, but somehow he saw her
even oftener than he had anticipated. During the time he spent in the
house, chance seemed to throw her continually in his path or under his
eye. From his window he saw her carrying water from the spring, driving
the small agile cow to and from the mountain pasturage, or idling in
the shade. Upon the whole it was oftener this last than any oth