Among this quaint company of the garden borders she spent much of her time, now hoeing in a desultory fashion, now leaning on the long handle of the implement and looking away upon the far reaches of the purple mountains. As they stretched to vague distances they became blue, and farther on the great azure domes merged into a still more tender hue, and this in turn melted into a soft indeterminate tint that embellished the faint horizon. Her dreaming eyes would grow bright and wistful; her rich brown curling hair, set free by the yellow sun-bonnet that slipped off her head and upon her shoulders, would airily float backward in the wind; there was a lithe grace in the slender figure, albeit clad in a yellow homespun of a deep dye, and the faded purplish neckerchief was caught about a throat fairer even than the fair face, which was delicately flushed. Absalom's mother, standing beside Peter, the eldest son, in the doorway, watched her long one day. "It all kem about from that thar bran dance," said Peter, a homely man, with a sterling, narrow-minded wife and an ascetic sense of religion. "Thar Satan waits, an' he gits nimbler every time ye shake yer foot. The fiddler gin out the figger ter change partners, an' this hyar gal war dancin' opposite Abs'lom, ez hed never looked nigh her till that day. The gal didn't know _what_ ter do; she jes' stood still; but Abs'lom he jes' danced up ter her ez keerless an' gay ez he always war, jes' like she war ennybody else, an' when he held out his han' she gin him hern, all a-trembly, an' lookin' up at him, plumb skeered ter death, her eyes all wide an' sorter wishful, like some wild thing trapped in the woods. An' then the durned fiddler, moved by the devil, I'll be bound, plumb furgot ter change 'em back. So they danced haff'n the day tergether. An' arter that they war forever a-stealin' off an' accidentally meetin' at the spring, an' whenst he war a-huntin' or she drivin' up the cow, an' a-courtin' ginerally, till they war promised ter marry." "'Twarn't the bran dance; 'twar suthin' ez fleetin' an' ez useless," said his mother, standing in the door and gazing at the unconscious girl, who was leaning upon the hoe, half in the shadow of the blooming laurel that crowded about the enclosure and bent over the rail fence, and half in the burnished sunshine; "she's plumb beautiful--thar's the snare ez tangled Abs'lom's steps. I never 'lowed ter see the day ez could show enny comfort fur his dad bein' dead, but we hev been spared some o' the tallest cavortin' that ever war seen sence the Big Smoky war built. Sometimes it plumb skeers me ter think ez we-uns hev got a Quimbey abidin' up hyar along o' we-uns in _his_ house an' a-callin' o' herse'f Kittredge. I looks ter see him a-stalkin' roun' hyar some night, too outdone an' aggervated ter rest in his grave."