The simple words struck me almost like a blow. The voice was sweet as a flute in its lowest tones, the lips were red and curving, but the speech was the uncouth vernacular of the hills. Fate had indeed cheated her. As I nervously drew out my pipe, thinking what I should say next, she discovered a rent on her shoulder where the careless claws of the scared squirrel had torn the fabric of her dress. She gave a little exclamation of annoyance, thrust one finger in the torn place, pouted as a child might for an instant, then laughed and tossed her garlanded head. "I don't keer! Granny'll fix it!" It was my cue. "Who is Granny?" "Granny?... Oh! _my_ granny. We live together." "On Lizard Point," I supplemented. "Doesn't anyone else live with you?" She nodded her head brightly. "Yes, Grandf'er does, but he don't count." Her ingenuousness was bewitching, and I essayed to prolong the interview. "Aren't you afraid to wander around in the woods this way alone?" "Me!... _Skeerd?_" For a moment she looked at me with dropped chin and a tiny frown of wonder, then a glad stream of laughter came pouring from her upheld mouth, filling the forest with rippling, echoing cadences. I gazed on the round, gleaming column of her young throat, milk-white and firm, and a subtle, primal call stirred in my breast. When her boisterous merriment had subsided, I could see her teeth, like young corn when the husks are green, between the scarlet of her parted lips. I came closer yet. I was bewildered, puzzled, but strangely attracted. I scarcely knew how to answer her. "You see," I tried to explain, "it--that is, where I came from young women go nowhere without an escort, except in town." "Oh!" Her face was serious now, and she seemed trying to comprehend. "Whur'd you come frum?" she demanded, with disconcerting abruptness. "From Lexington." "Whut's that?" "A town--a little city." "I don't like city people!" The sentence sprang forth spontaneously, and she looked displeased. "Why?" I did not receive an answer. She was kicking a small bunch of moss with the toe of her ugly, coarse shoe, which was rusty, and laced with a string. But for all its shapelessness, the shoe was very small. "Why don't you like city people?" "'Cause Buck says they're mean an' stuck up!" She flashed the sentence at me with a rapid glance of defiance. "Who's Buck?" Now the girl's face took fire, and dire confusion gripped her. Hair and skin became indistinguishable. But she flung her head up bravely, and with burning eyes looked straight into mine. "Buck Steele. He's th' blacksmith over to Hebron, an' he's--my frien'." She had grit. I honored her for that speech.