She was only a simple mountain girl, but it seemed to him that never since the first spring bloomed had woman worn so noble and appealing a face, so fine and delicate a personality. The crude dialect, familiar enough to him accustomed to the region, significant of ignorance, of poverty, of hopeless isolation from civilization, of uncouth manners, was in her all that speech might be, a medium for her ideas; the coarseness of her dress could hardly impinge upon the impression of her grace,—it was merely a garb. Her embarrassment had ceased. She looked straight at him; the unconscious dignity of her manner, the calmness of her grave eyes, the fading flush in her cheek, betokened that she had made her appeal to his generosity and that she had faith in it. He was not a man who gave promises lightly. He was still silent. Again he looked up the road, with an absorbed and knitted brow. He tipped his hat further forward over his face; he shifted the reins uncertainly in his hands; the horse impatiently shook his head and struck the ground with his forefoot. “It would be the worst thing I could do—for you,” Gwinnan said at last, surprised himself at the tone he was taking. She made no rejoinder; her face did not change; she only looked expectantly at him. “You ought not to marry a man like that,” he continued. “You are too good for him; and that is not saying much for you either.” “Oh,” she cried, renewing her hold upon the bridle, and looking up with a face that coerced credence, “’tain’t fur myself I want him free! It air jes’ fur him. He ’peared ter set mo’ store by another gal than me. I ain’t thinkin’ ez we-uns would marry then. Like ez not he’d go straight ter Elviry Crosby.” Another man might have experienced an amusement, a sort of self-ridicule, that he should remember the names of the infinitely insignificant, uncouth and humble actors in the little drama played in the court-room. But to Gwinnan people were people wherever he found them, and he had more respect for their principles than for their clothes. He recollected without effort the mention of Elvira in the testimony. Nevertheless, with the many-sided view of the lawyer, he rejoined, oblivious of the suggestion conveyed, “I think not. It was on your account he attacked me.” Her face crimsoned, but with that fine instinct of hers she steadfastly met his gaze, intimating that she placed no foolish interpretation upon his words or actions. She answered quietly enough, “Reuben air sometimes gin ter reckless notions. I reckon he noticed ez ye tuk up fur me whenst them lawyers war so besettin’. He warn’t used ter sech ez that in Wild-Cat Hollow. Folks ginerally air sot agin me. Though I ain’t treated mean, no-ways,” she added, hastily, lest she might decry her relatives. “Only nobody thinks like me.” A forlorn isolation she suggested,—away up in the Great Smoky Mountains, thinking her unshared thoughts.