She forbore for a moment to mark how her shaft had sped. She sat motionless, her feet perched on the rung of the chair, and she looked very small and unintentional, and reflective, as she placidly contemplated the night scene. The fireflies fluctuated in the dank shadows, that gloomed duskily about the porch; now close at hand, now a momentary gleam far away in a bosky tangle, still multiplying, till they seemed some elusively glittering network spread as a snare for the darkness. The mountains had become invisible in the blackness, save for their rigid summit-lines against the sky. The frogs chanted by the water-side, and katydids were monotonously shrilling in the orchard. The grating of Teck Jepson’s chair on the floor, as he abruptly shifted his position, was the only sound that broke upon the quiet with the jarring effect of interruption, and as Mrs. Strobe turned she saw his face thrown into strong relief by the rays of a tallow dip within, which Marcella had just kindled. The white light streamed forth as far as the great gourd-leaves behind his head, eliciting their faint green color with the interstices of olive-hued shadows. His face had relaxed; it was haughty no longer. There was an alert anxiety in the blue eyes which the mountain girl fancied so deep. He had taken off his hat, and pushed back his dark hair from his forehead. He was frowning a little, and yet he hardly noticed the sudden flare of light upon his face; his compressed lips had softened, had parted. He said nothing. Another voice came out of the darkness:— “I dunno what Clem Sanders mought ondertake ter set hisse’f up ter git mad fur, ’kase Marcelly ’lows ez this one or that one air good-lookin’,” “Woolly” spoke up, with an acrimony and a decision which showed that his discourse was not exclusively confined to the placid “baa.” “Clem Sanders hain’t got no right ter say nuthin’ ’bout good-lookin’ folks, the Lord above knows, all marked up with cinders an’ soot ez he be. I’ll be bound Marcelly ain’t a-goin’ ter interrupt herse’f studyin’ ’bout what Clem Sanders thinks ’bout good looks.” “What ye talkin’ ’bout? Hev yer senses deserted ye?” the grandmother remarked to the “frequent visitor,” with a tart familiarity induced, perhaps, by the frequency of his visits. “Ye can’t expect a blacksmith ter be nuthin’ but cindery an’ sooty,—like folks ez plow gits miry. None ter choose ’twixt ’em, I’m a-thinkin’.” “I know that.” Andy Longwood made a feint of acquiescence; then continued droningly, as one who has a grievance, “But Marcelly ain’t mindin’ Clem Sanders,—else she ain’t the gal I take her fur. Looks so grizzly an’ sooty, I ain’t s’prised none ef the Satan ez Pa’son Donnard seen settin’ on the anvil in the forge warn’t nuthin’ but Clem hisself.” “Shucks!” said the uncompromising Isabel. “_He_ hed wings an’ hawns, ’cordin’ ter pa’son, an’ Clem hain’t nare one.” “Waal, I don’t keer,” growled “Woolly.” “Clem’s a sight ter be seen, a scandal ter the jaybirds.”