He continued to urge his hospitality, and to praise the sheep that had been killed by a dog, and the girl pleaded with her eyes; and I thought that Bob would waver, he smiled so and bowed so many times, but in the end he was firm, and bade me turn the buggy around. Even then, with his foot on the step, he lingered to speak another word, though never seeming to utter what came into his mind. At last we drove away, and the moment my back was turned, the girl was only a shadow lying across my memory; and it worried me. I could look at as delicate a thing as a flower and in my mind could reproduce its form and its hue, but that woman was a blur to her own image. CHAPTER XXII. "What do you think of her, Dan?" Bob asked as we drove toward home. "Tell me exactly what you think." "She is beautiful, sir," I replied, "but somehow her features refuse to remain with me." "They remain with me--black eyes, black hair, rose-leaf ears. She is an oration of the ancients set forth in nineteenth century flesh and blood." "Yes, sir," I assented, with my mind on the old man, "but I don't think much of her stock, as Mr. Clem might say." He snatched the lines from me, lashed the horse to a fierce trot, and looked at me as I sat with my hands fallen in idle submission. "Dan, what's the matter with you? You are getting to be a d---- cynic. Don't like her stock! I suppose you mean her father? He has had to work his way, no doubt, and may not have read as many fine books as certain fellows who have been pampered, but he is a gentleman. Do you hear me?" He lashed the horse. "Do you hear what I say?" "If you say he is a gentleman, he is, Mars. Bob." "But why the devil don't you make discoveries of your own?" "I do, but I have not found the North Pole." "What do you mean by that? Mean that as a gentleman Mr. Potter is a North Pole to you and is therefore beyond your discovery? Is that what you mean?" At this instant my wretchedness must have smitten him. He pulled the horse back to a walk; he laid his hand upon mine, limp in my lap, and said: "Dan, I was a brute to talk that way when you've been so sick. You are right. The old fellow is as ignorant as a boar but love poured a basket of flowers over him. Please don't try to apologize--I'd rather you'd hit me than to do that. Yes, the old man is ignorant and coarse but the girl is intelligent and refined. Look there," he added, pointing with his buggy whip, "you see a flower with a weed as its parent. The weed has done some good, for it has brought forth the flower, and after all it must have held an unconscious refinement. Here, you take the lines and drive, just as you were doing back there, and don't think of what I said. Now, you see, we are going along just as if nothing had happened."