So we strolled across an open space where were two giant pines towering somber against the twilight, a little mountain brooklet, and a few quiet cows. "Stop," said Smith, leaning his back against a pine, and encircling my neck affectionately with an arm; "I told you, as regards Sarah Jane, how my feelings stand. Well, now, you just bet she's on the reciprocate! When I told old woman Copples I'd like to invite you over,--Sarah Jane she passed me in the doorway,--and said she, 'Glad to see _your_ friends.'" Then _sotto voce_, for we were very near, he sang again: "''Tis, O, 'tis the cottage of me love;' "and C. K.," he continued familiarly, "you're a judge of wimmen," chucking his knuckles into my ribs, whereat I jumped; when he added, "There, I knew you was. Well, Sarah Jane is a derned magnificent female; number three boot, just the height for me. _Venus de_ Copples, I call her, and would make the most touching artist's wife in this planet. If I design to paint a head, or a foot, or an arm, get my little old Sarah Jane to peel the particular charm, and just whack her in on the canvas." We passed in through low doors, turned from a small, dark entry into the family sitting-room, and were alone there in presence of a cheery log fire, which good-naturedly bade us welcome, crackling freely and tossing its sparks out upon floor of pine and coyote-skin rug. A few old framed prints hung upon dark walls, their faces looking serenely down upon the scanty, old-fashioned furniture and windows full of flowering plants. A low-cushioned chair, not long since vacated, was drawn close by the centre-table, whereon were a lamp and a large, open Bible, with a pair of silver-bowed spectacles lying upon its lighted page. Smith made a gesture of silence toward the door, touched the Bible, and whispered, "_Here's_ where old woman Copples lives, and it is a good thing; I read it aloud to her evenings, and I can just feel the high, local lights of it. It'll fetch H. G. yet!" At this juncture the door opened; a pale, thin, elderly woman entered, and with tired smile greeted me. While her hard, labor-stiffened, needle-roughened hand was in mine, I looked into her face and felt something (it may be, it must be, but little, yet something) of the sorrow of her life; that of a woman large in sympathy, deep in faith, eternal in constancy, thrown away on a rough, worthless fellow. All things she hoped for had failed her; the tenderness which never came, the hopes years ago in ashes, the whole world of her yearnings long buried, leaving only the duty of living and the hope of Heaven. As she sat down, took up her spectacles and knitting, and closed the Bible, she began pleasantly to talk to us of the warm, bright autumn nights, of Smith's work, and then of my own profession, and of her niece, Sarah Jane. Her genuinely sweet spirit and natively gentle manner were very beautiful, and far overbalanced all traces of rustic birth and mountain life.