"Won't you sit down?" he invited, and the girl dropped cross-legged on a mossy rock, and waited. To-day, she wore a blue print dress, instead of the red one. It was always a matter of amazement to the man that in such an environment she was not only wildly beautiful, but invariably the pink of neatness. She could climb a tree or a mountain, or emerge from a sweltering blackberry patch, seemingly as fresh and unruffled as she had been at the start. The man stood uncomfortably looking at her, and was momentarily at a loss for words with which to commence. "What was ye a-goin' ter tell me?" she asked. "Miss Sally," he began, "I've discovered something about Samson." Her blue eyes flashed ominously. "Ye can't tell me nothin' 'bout Samson," she declared, "withouten hit's somethin' nice." "It's something very nice," the man reassured her. "Then, ye needn't tell me, because I already knows hit," came her prompt and confident announcement. Lescott shook his head, dubiously. "Samson is a genius," he said. "What's thet?" "He has great gifts--great abilities to become a figure in the world." She nodded her head, in prompt and full corroboration. "I reckon Samson'll be the biggest man in the mountings some day." "He ought to be more than that." Suspicion at once cast a cloud across the violet serenity of her eyes. "What does ye mean?" she demanded. "I mean"--the painter paused a moment, and then said bluntly--"I mean that I want to take him back with me to New York." The girl sprang to her feet with her chin defiantly high and her brown hands clenched into tight little fists. Her bosom heaved convulsively, and her eyes blazed through tears of anger. Her face was pale. "Ye hain't!" she cried, in a paroxysm of fear and wrath. "Ye hain't a- goin' ter do no sich--no sich of a damn thing!" She stamped her foot, and her whole girlish body, drawn into rigid uprightness, was a-quiver with the incarnate spirit of the woman defending her home and institutions. For a moment after that, she could not speak, but her determined eyes blazed a declaration of war. It was as though he had posed her as the Spirit of the Cumberlands. He waited until she should be calmer. It was useless to attempt stemming her momentary torrent of rage. It was like one of the sudden and magnificent tempests that often swept these hills, a brief visit of the furies. One must seek shelter and wait. It would end as suddenly as it had come. At last, he spoke, very softly. "You don't understand me, Miss Sally. I'm not trying to take Samson away from you. If a man should lose a girl like you, he couldn't gain enough in the world to make up for it. All I want is that he shall have the chance to make the best of his life." "I reckon Samson don't need no fotched-on help ter make folks acknowledge him." "Every man needs his chance. He can be a great painter--but that's the least part of it. He can come back equipped for anything that life offers. Here, he is wasted."