He became more definite, a bit insistent. It had been plain, for long, that it had required some self-control for him to walk as he had walked, close by her side, without some demonstration of his admiration for her, to stand there with her at the bars without some sign that in her presence he found happiness much greater than he had ever known, could ever know, elsewhere. "You goin' to git too good fer--me?" he asked. She turned toward him impulsively. Great friendship shone frankly in her fine eyes. On her face was that expression of complete and understanding comradery which one child chum may show another. Almost she said as much of him as she had said of the surrounding mountains, but there was that upon his face which stopped her. It was too plain that friendship was not what he wanted, would not satisfy him. There was a hungry yearning in his eyes, mute, respectful, worshipful, not for comradery, but for a closer tie. She had watched this grow in him within the recent months, with worry and regret. It seemed to her a tragedy that their old friendship should ever prove inadequate. "No," she answered gently, "I shall never get too good for you, Joe--for any of my friends." He looked, almost with aversion, at the book she held so closely. He distrusted books. Instinctively he felt them to be enemies. "If you get them there ideas about learnin', an' all that, you will!" he gruffly said. "Leastways you'll be goin' off, some day an' leavin' us--me, the mountings an'--an' all yer friends up here." An expression of great earnestness, of almost fierce intensity grew in his face. "Madge," he said, "Madge Brierly, you're makin' a mistake! You're plannin' things to take you off from here; you're plannin' things to make you suffer, later on. You're gettin' bluegrass notions, an' bluegrass notions never did no mounting-born no good." He stepped closer to her. The latent fires in his approaching eyes were warning for her and she stepped back hastily. "Joe Lorey, you behave yourself!" said she. "I--" "Can't ye see I love ye, Madge?" he asked, and then the fires died down, leaving in his eyes the pleading, worried look alone. "Why, Madge, I--" She tried to make a joke of it. "Joe Lorey," she said, laughing, "I reckon you're _plum_ crazy. An' you ain't givin' me a chance to do what 'twas that I come down for." "But--" "I ain't goin' to listen to another word, to-day," said she, and waved him off.