"You know I'm a stranger," I ran on, easily, making a pretense to fill my pipe, and so help her over her embarrassment. "I came just about a week ago. I'm in the house up on Bald Knob yonder. The city didn't agree with me, and my doctor sent me out here to get well. I'm not mean and stuck up, believe me. I've got the poorest sort of an opinion of myself, although I've lived pretty clean. Now I want to be friends with you, and all the folks about here. You'll help me, won't you?" Her self-possession had returned while I was talking. When I stopped, I smiled, and looked at her as frankly and honestly as I could. "You don' 'pear puny!" was her startling rejoinder. I took another tack. "Pray tell me how it is the birds and the beasts obey you?" "I love 'em!" she answered, promptly, and with warmth. "I know 'em, an' they know me." She turned without warning, and walking to the bank of the creek, which at this point was raised several feet above the water, leaned over and peered down into the pool below. Could Eve have been more artless? She was looking at her reflection in the mirror of the stream! I picked up her bonnet by one of the strings, then went and stood beside her. A compliment arose unbidden to my lips, but I stifled it. It would not have been fair. "I mus' go," she said, straightening up, and twisting a hanging curl near her forehead back beneath her hair. "Aren't you--" I started to ask if she wasn't afraid, and if I mightn't go with her, but remembered in time. "--and your granny very lonely?" I finished, lamely, but she did not appear to notice it. "La! No! Th' Tollerses 's jis' t'other side o' th' ridge, 'n' they've got a pas'l o' kids. No time to git lonesome!" My spirit writhed. Such language as this--from her! She held out a hand for the bonnet. I brought it forward slowly, still holding it by the string. Her hand rested against mine for an instant as she took it. At this juncture I made a--to me--significant discovery. _Her nails were pared and clean!_ It seemed paradoxical, but it was true. I did not attempt to account for the phenomenon then, but I did later, with no results whatever. "Where is Lizard Point--exactly?" I asked, my voice more serious than it had been during our talk. She pointed her finger down the creek, as it flowed gently murmuring to the south. "Th' crick 'll lead yo'. Nigh onto half mile frum here." "I'm coming to see you and your granny some day soon. May I? You know it's lonesome for me out here. I'm not used to it. May I come?" She gazed at me with steady gray eyes for a few moments. "Ye-e-es; I s'pose so," she answered, reluctantly; "if yo' git lonesome.... Whut yo' keer'n' that jar fur?" Her glance had just espied it, and now it was my turn to blush. "I'll tell you--when I see you again," I compromised, laughing. She started off, but stopped and turned. "Live on Baldy, yo' say?" "Yes; in the old log house there." "I go thur sometimes. Maybe I'll come 'n' see you!"