Hence they were predisposed in the ministrant's favor as she appeared, and were surprised to find that Meddlesome, instead of masterful and middle-aged, was a girl of eighteen, looking very shy and appealing as she paused on the verge of the flaring sumac copse, one hand lifted to a swaying bough, the other arm sustaining a basket. Even her coarse gown lent itself to pleasing effect, since its dull-brown hue composed well with the red and russet glow of the leaves about her, and its short waist, close sleeves, and scant skirt, reaching to the instep, the immemorial fashion of the hills, were less of a grotesque rusticity since there was prevalent elsewhere a vogue of quasi-Empire modes, of which the cut of her garb was reminiscent. A saffron kerchief about her throat had in its folds a necklace of over-cup acorns in three strands, and her hair, meekly parted on her forehead, was of a lustrous brown, and fell in heavy undulations on her shoulders. There was a delicate but distinct tracery of blue veins in her milky-white complexion, and she might have seemed eminently calculated for meddling disastrously with the peace of mind of the mountain youth were it not for the preoccupied expression of her eyes. Though large, brown and long-lashed, they were full of care and perplexity, and a frowning, disconcerted line between her eyebrows was so marked as almost to throw her face out of drawing. Troubled about many things, evidently, was Meddlesome. She could not even delegate the opening of a basket that her little brother had brought and placed beside the camp-fire. "Don't, Gran'dad," she exclaimed suddenly, stepping alertly forward--"_don't_ put that loaf in that thar bread-box; the box 'pears ter be damp. Leave the loaf in the big basket till ter-morrer. It'll eat shorter then, bein' fraish-baked. They kin hev these biscuits fer supper,"--dropping on one knee and setting forth on the cloth, from the basket on her arm, some thick soggy-looking lumps of dough,--"I baked some dodgers, too--four, six, eight, ten,"--she was counting a dozen golden-brown cates of delectable aspect--"knowin' they would hone fer cornmeal arter huntin' an' nuthin' else nohow air fitten ter eat with feesh or aigs. Hev you-uns got any aigs?" She sprang up, and, standing on agile tiptoe, peered without ceremony into their wagon. Instantly she recoiled with a cry of horrified reproach. "Thar's ants in yer short-sweetenin'! How _could_ you-uns let sech ez that happen?" "Oh, surely not," exclaimed Purcell, hastening to her side. But the fact could not be gain-said; the neglected sugar was spoiled.