But this afternoon, when Newt trudged in from his futile expedition across the hills, he saw her crossing the yard in the gathering twilight, and this time the boy did not growl in his throat like a quarrelsome dog at the sight of her. He would not admit to himself that he liked her, but he disliked her less than the others. She was too much like a "furriner" to please him, and too quiet. There was no element in his creed of intolerance, which could understand her gentleness. It was sheer weakness, yet in that very weakness was an appeal to something in himself, which he did not seek to analyze. At all events, "Clem's gal" in a way interested him. She was young and lithe and strong; stronger than the women whom she permitted to badger her with incessant shrewishness. Also, she must be "smarter" than they, for she had been away to school. This fondness for "larnin'" in itself indicated a reprehensible spirit of acceptance for the "stuck-up" ideas of the outer world. But for that she had some excuse. Her shiftless father, for whom the boy entertained a deep contempt, had humored his daughter's ambitions so that she might in the end secure her teacher's certificate and contribute to his support. It was not an unselfish motive, but the girl, eager for education, had not questioned motives. When Lucinda Merton had taken Newt in her buggy on the outskirts of Winchester, a vague sense of sunshine had struck through the fog of his friendlessness, and he had, for the first time, a conception of feminine graciousness. In his brief talks with Minerva the same incomprehensible thing occurred. Some unaccountable glow of sympathy awoke in him, and he felt that he need not be on the defensive, alert for treachery and enmity. When she went away, a sort of dull loneliness settled over him, and when she came back, an unacknowledged pleasure stole into his heart.