The next day she had forgotten that she was angry. Her mother showed no surprise at any of her moods. Easter was not like other " gals," she said; she had always been" quar," and she reckoned would" al'ays be that way." She objected in no wise to Clayton's intimacy with her. The furriner," she told Raines, was the only man who had ever been able to manage her, and if she wanted Easter to do anything " ag'in her will, she went to him fust "-a simple remark that threw the mountaineer into deep thoughtfulness. Indeed, this sense of power that Clayton felt over the wilful, passionate creature thrilled him with more pleasure than he would have been willing to admit; at the same time it suggested to him a certain responsibility. Why not make use of it, and a good use? The girl was perhaps deplorably ignorant, could do but little more than read and write; but she was susceptible of development, and at times apparently conscious of the need of it and desirous for it. Once he had carried her a handful of violets, and thereafter an old pitcher that stood on a shelf blossomed every day with wild-flowers. He had transplanted a vine from the woods and taught her to train it over the porch, and the first hint of tenderness he found in her nature was in the care of that plant. He had taken her a book full of pictures and fashion-plates, and he had noticed a quick and ingenious adoption of some of its hints in her dress. One afternoon, as he lay on his bed in a darkened corner of his room, a woman's shadow passed across the wall, returned, and a moment later he saw Easter's face at the window. He had lain quiet, and watched her while her wondering eyes roved from one object to another, until they were fastened with a long, intent look on a picture that stood upon a table near the window. He stirred, and her face melted away instantly. A few days later he was sitting with Easter and Raines at the cabin. The mother was at the other end of the porch, talking to a neighbor who had stopped to rest on his way across the mountains. Easter air a-gettin' high notions," she was saying, " 'n' she air a-spendin' her savin 's, 'n' all mine she kin git hold of, to buy fixin's at the commissary. She must hev white crockery, 'n' towels, 'n' newfangled forks, 'n' sichlike." A conscious flush came into the girl's face, and she rose hastily and went into the house. "I was afeard," continued the mother, " that she would hev her hair cut short, 'n' be a-flyin' with ribbons, 'n' spangled out like a rainbow, like old 'Lige Hicks's gal, ef I hadn't heerd the furriner tell her it was ' beastly.' Thar ain't no fear now, fer what that furriner don't like, Easter don't nother." For an instant the mountaineer's eyes had flashed on Clayton, but when the latter, a trifle embarrassed, looked up, Raines apparently had heard nothing. Easter did not reappear until the mountaineer was gone.