"You could use that railroad-iron that I saw 'em heat red-hot an' bend, down in the valley," she suggested. "That's it," said he. "Two loops of railroad-iron fastened to a bee-tree" (he pointed) "just as these loops, here, are fastened to the straight black stem. That's 'B.'" "I won't forget," said she, her beautiful young brow puckered earnestly as she stored the knowledge in her brain. "And this is 'C,'" said he. "'C,' 'C'" said she. "Jest take off one of th' loops an' use it by itself." "That's so," said he. "And here is 'D'" "Cut off th' top th' tree," said she. "Just cut it plumb off, loop an' all." He laughed. It was clear that she would be an earnest and quick-thinking pupil to whomever had the task of giving her her education. As he looked at her, now, he for the first time fully realized her beauty. He had known, from the first, that she was most attractive, most unusual for a mountain maid; but now, laughing, although her head was still bent to the book, her big eyes, sparkling with her merriment, raised frankly to his face, were revelations to him. He had not seen such eyes before, and all the old-time similes for deep-brown orbs sprang instantly to mind. "Fathomless pools," "translucent amber"--no simile would really describe them. Late hours had never dimmed them, illness had never made them heavy, he was sure a lie had never made them shift from their straight gaze for one short second. He had not seen such eyes in cities! And from careful contemplation of the eyes, he kept on with a careful contemplation of the other beauties of his fair and unexpected pupil. Her homespun gown, always ill-shaped and now unusually protuberant in spots, unusually tight in others, because of its late wetting and impromptu, partial drying, could not hide the sylvan grave of her small-boned and lissome figure, just budding into womanhood. Her feet, crossed on the ground, were as patrician in their nakedness as any bluegrass belle's in satin slippers. Her ankles, scratched by casual thorns and already beginning to blush brown from the June sun's ardent kisses, were as delicate as any he had ever seen enmeshed in silken hose. Her hands, long, slender, taper-fingered, actually dainty, although brown and roughened by hard labor, were, it seemed to him, better fitted for the fingering of a piano's keys than for the coarse and heavy tasks to which he knew they must be well accustomed. He gazed at her in veritable wonder. How had she blossomed, thus, here in this wilderness? "Where do you live?" he asked, interrupting their scholastic efforts. "Up thar," she pointed, and, above, he could just see the top of a mud-and-stick chimney rise above a crag between the trees. "Have you brothers or sisters?"