Mary Grahame's clear complexion, glowing with the hue of health, her large and soft and dark gray eyes, her abundant glossy black hair, might have won from the most fastidious some of that admiration given to personal beauty; but in truth Horace Danforth had grown indifferent as well as fastidious, and it was not until in after days he had seen the complexion glow and the dark eyes kindle with feeling, that he said to himself, "She is beautiful!" To the fascination of a peculiarly graceful, gentle, yet earnest manner, he was, however, more quickly susceptible. During this first evening, the chief emotion excited in his mind was surprise at the style of conversation and manner, the acquaintance with books and with _les bien-seances_ which marked these inhabitants of a log cabin in the western wilds--these denizens of a half-savage life. A day of hard riding had induced such fatigue, that even the rare and unexpected pleasure of communication with refined and cultivated minds, could not keep Horace Danforth long from his pillow. As he expected to set out in the morning very early, he would have made his adieus in parting for the night, mingling with them courteous expressions of the enjoyment which such society had afforded him after his long abstinence from all intellectual converse. "Believe me," said Mr. Graham, and the sentiment was corroborated by his daughter's eyes, "the pleasure has been mutual. Society is the great want of our western life. I have been wishing to ask whether your business were too urgent to permit you to afford us more of this coveted good?" "I am ashamed to confess," said Horace Danforth, with some embarrassment, "that I have no business at present--that I am an idler--I verily believe the only one in your country." "Then will you not give us the pleasure of your company for a longer time? A little rest will be no disadvantage either to your horses or yourself, and on us you will be conferring a favor which you cannot appreciate till you have lived five hundred miles away from civilization." The invitation was accepted as cordially as it was given, to the great satisfaction of John Stacy, who had been much pleased with the appearance of land in this neighborhood, and wanted time to look about him preparatory to purchasing.