“No, no,” Blev answered the look on the two faces; “nothin' ain't the matter of Sammy. He's jest married--that little Huldy Frew 'at's been waitin' on table at Aunt Randy Card's _ho_-tel. You know, Aunt Cornely, she is a mighty pretty little trick--and there ain't nothin' bad about the gal. I jest knowed you and Pap 'ud feel mighty hurt over Sammy doin' you-all like you was cruel to him--like he had to run away to git married; and I 'lowed I better come and tell you fust.” The “little Huldy gal” was, as Blev Straly had described her, a mighty pretty little trick, and nothing bad about her. The orphan child of poor mountaineers, bound out since the death of her parents when she was ten years old, she had been two years now working for Aunt Randy Card, who kept the primitive hotel at Hepzibah. Even in this remote region Huldy showed that wonderful--that irrepressible--upward impulse of young feminine America, that instinctive affinity for the finer things of life, that marvellous understanding of graces and refinements, and that pathetic and persistent groping after them which is the marked characteristic of America's daughters. The child was not yet sixteen, a fair little thing with soft ashen hair and honest gray eyes, the pink upon her cheek like that of a New England girl. At first this marriage--which had been so unkindly conducted by Sammy, used by him apparently as a weapon of affront--seemed to bring with it only good, only happiness. The boy was more contented at home, less wayward, and the feeling of apprehension that had dwelt continually in the hearts of Pap and Aunt Cornelia ever since his adolescence now slept. The little Huldy--her own small cup apparently full of happiness--was all affectionate gratitude and docility. She healed the bruises Sammy made, poured balm in the wounds he inflicted; she was sunny, obedient, grateful enough for two. But a new trait was developed in Sammy's nature--perversity. Life was made smooth to his feet; the things he needed--even the things which he merely desired--were procured and brought to him. Love brooded above and around him--timid, chidden, but absolute, adoring. Nothing was left him--no occupation was offered for his energies--but to resent these things, to quarrel with his benefits. And now the quarrel began. Its outcome was this: Toward the end of the first year of the marriage, upon a bleak, forbidding March day--a day of bitter wind and icy sleet,--there rode one to the Overholt door who called upon Pap and Aunt Cornelia to hitch up and come with all possible haste to old Eph'm Blackshears, Cornelia's father--a man who had lived to fourscore, and who now lay at his last, asking for his daughter, his baby chile, Cornely. For days Sammy had been in a very ill-promising mood; but he brightened as the foster-parents drove away in the bleak, gray, hostile forenoon, Huldy helping Aunt Cornelia to dress and make ready, tucking her lovingly into the wagon and beneath the thick old quilt.