And then, with a sudden bracing of the nerves, he reflected on the view which this refined society would entertain of the alternative that fate presented; the disgrace which he would sustain in his return was hardly to be mentioned to ears so polite! Was he farther from his friends here than he would be there? Was he more definitely banished from his wonted sphere? He was dead to them,--forever dead,--and the sooner forgotten the better! In pursuance of his determination, he went downstairs arrayed in the blue-checked homespun shirt and gray jeans trousers which Mrs. Sims with so great and dilatory labor had contrived. He thought he looked the typical mountaineer in this attire, with a pair of long cowhide boots, purchased at the cross-roads store, drawn up to his knees over the legs of the trousers, and a white wool hat of broad brim set far back on his dark red-brown hair. He could hardly have deceived even an unpracticed eye. The texture of his skin, shielded by his vocation from wind and weather; the careful grooming which was the habit of years; the trained step and pose and manner, unconscious though they were; the hand, delicate, however muscular, and white, and with well-tended nails; the silken quality of his smooth hair and mustache; the expression of the eye;--he looked like a young “society swell” dressed for a rural rôle in private theatricals. Mrs. Sims, who was languidly setting the table in the passage, while Euphemia, clashing the pots and pans and kettles in the room to the left, was “dishin’ up” breakfast, paused in her wheezing hymn, catching sight of him, to survey her handiwork. “Waal!” she exclaimed in delighted pride, appropriating to her own skill the credit of the effect of his symmetry. “Now don’t them clothes jes’ set! I’ll be boun’ nobody kin say ez I ain’t a plumb special hand fur the needle an’ shears! I jes’ want Tubal Cain Sims ter view them ‘vain trappin’s,’ ez the hyme calls ’em,--though ez we ain’t endowed by Providence with feathers, thar ain’t no use in makin’ a sin out’n hevin’ the bes’ clothes what we kin git.” The juggler was as vain as a young man can well be. But he had seldom encountered such outspoken admiration, and was a trifle out of countenance; for what Mrs. Sims conceived to be the excellence of her own proficiency as a tailor he apprehended was due to the graces of his personal endowment. He made her a flourishing bow of mock courtesy, and then stood leaning against the jamb of the door, one hand in the pocket of the gray trousers, the other readjusting the wide low shirt-collar about his throat.