She might just as well have called him a fool, her axent wuz such. Arvilly is too hash. Sez he: "Now my Lucia is different. She knows nothing about sin and wickedness, and I got this position for her, so that as soon as she left the convent she was placed directly in the care of this good woman and her little innocent child. What does she know of sin or sorrow, or worldliness or vanity?" "Or danger?" sez I meanin'ly. "If she always has some one at her side to guard her, her perfect ignorance and innocence is a charm, but how would it be in the hour of danger and temptation? Why should anybody fear being burned if they had no knowledge of fire?" "Oh," sez he, "her divine innocence is her safeguard. Evil would retire abashed before the timid glance of her pure eyes." "I hope so," sez I dryly. "I hope so. But I never knew the whiteness of its wool to help a lamb if a wolfdog got after it. But mebby it will in her case," sez I reasonably. "I don't want to break up your happiness," sez I. "You cannot," sez he dogmatically. "You cannot. I have brought up my Lucia in the only right way for a young girl to be brought up. She has been completely separated from young people of the opposite sex; she knows nothing of fashionable flirting and folly. And when I see such abnormal creatures as the New Girl, as they call her, I am horrified, shocked beyond words at the spectacle of their brazen independence and what they call their freedom, their comradeship with the opposite sex, their fearlessness and boldness and frankness with gentlemen, talking with them really as if they were of the same sex as themselves. As I see this I thank God my Lucia is different." Well, she wuz a pretty little thing, with eyes as innocent and timid as a young fawn's that had never been outside its green covert in the great wilderness. But I knew that under her baby looks and baby ways wuz a woman's heart; a woman's emotions and impulses would roust up when the time come and the sun of love shone down on her. Why, Nater had layed down laws before Elder Wessel did; he couldn't keep her from thinkin' about her future mate; she would let her mind dwell on some one if it wuz only the man in the moon. And I knew the world wuz full of bad men as well as good men. How would it be with her if thrown with a wolf in sheep's clothing? If guarded and sheltered, all right, but if onguarded and onwarned and thrown into temptation and danger, I felt that trouble wuz ahead for Lucia Wessel. But I knew it wuz no use for me to hist up a danger flag in front of her, for her father wouldn't let me. But I felt dubersome about her, dretful dubersome. She and Aronette had formed a real girl attachment for each other, and some way I didn't like the idee on't, but don't know as I could have told why.