“Oh, Wanny, then I won’t have to go into a town--to be laughed at--and I can get--get dressed like--like a lady--before he sees me again!” she exclaimed, breathlessly. “He? Who’s that, Genie?” inquired Adam, dryly, though he knew he could guess very well. Genie might have lived on the desert, like a shy, lonely, wild creature, but she was eternally feminine enough to bite her tongue at the slip she had made, and to blush charmingly. Then Mrs. Blair bustled out again, in sunbonnet and shawl, and with the alacrity of excitement she led Genie away through the grove of oaks toward the other end of the valley. Adam returned to camp, much relieved and pleased, yet finding suddenly that a grave, pondering mood had come upon him. In the still noon hour, when the sun was hot and the flies buzzed lazily, Adam would surely have succumbed to drowsiness had he not been vociferously hailed by some one. He sat up to hear one of the little Blairs call, “Say, my maw wants you to eat with us.” Adam lumbered up and, trying to accommodate his giant steps to those of the urchin, finally reached the house. He heard Mrs. Blair in the kitchen. Then something swift and white rushed upon Adam from somewhere. “_Look!_” it cried, in ecstatic tones, and pirouetted before his dazzled eyes. Genie! In a white dress, white slippers--all white, even to the rapt, beautiful, strangely transformed face! It was a Genie he could not recognize. Yet, however her dark gold-glinting tresses were brushed and arranged, he would have known their rare, rich color. And the eyes were Genie’s--vivid like the heart of a magenta cactus flower, unutterably and terribly expressive of happiness. But all else--the girl’s height and form and movement--had acquired something subtly feminine. The essence of woman breathed from her. “Oh, Wanny, I’ve a whole _bundle_ of dresses!” she cried, rapturously. “And I put this on to please you.” “Pleased!... Dear girl, I’m--I’m full of joy for you--overcome for myself,” exclaimed Adam. How, in that moment, he blessed the nameless spirit which had come to him the day Genie’s fate and future hung in the balance! What a victory for him to remember--seen now in the light of Genie’s lovely face! Then Mrs. Blair bustled in. Easy indeed was it to see how the happiness of others affected her. “It’s good we have dinner at noon,” she said, as she put dish after dish upon the table, “else we’d had to do with little. Sit at table, folks.... Children, you must wait. We’ve company.... Gene, come to dinner.”