"It's all the stranger," he said, "because I can't forget our first meeting. Then you were the spirit of warfare. I can still seem to see you standing there barring the path; your eyes ablaze and your nostrils aquiver with righteous wrath." For an instant, in recollection of the incident, she forgot her timidity and there flashed into her face the swift illumination of a smile. "Thet war when I 'lowed ye war an enemy. Folks don't show no--I mean don't show any--fear of thar enemies. Leastways--at least--mountain folks don't." He understood that attitude, but he smiled, pretending to misconstrue it. "Then I'm not dangerous as an enemy? It's only when I seek to be a friend that I need be feared?" Her flush deepened into positive confusion and her reply was faltering. "I didn't mean nothin' like thet. Hit's jest thet when I tries ter talk with ye, I feels so plumb ign'rant an'--an' benighted--thet--thet----" She broke off and the man leaning on the fence bent toward her. "You mean that when you talk to me you think I'm comparing you with the girls I know down below, isn't that it?" Blossom nodded her head and added, "With gals--girls I mean--that wears fancy fixin's an' talks grammar." "Sit down there for a minute, Blossom," he commanded, and when she had enthroned herself on the square-hewn horse-block by the gate he seated himself, cross-legged at her feet. "Grammar isn't so very hard to learn," he assured her. "And any woman who carries herself with your lance-like ease, starts out equipped with more than 'fancy fixin's.' I want to tell you about a dream I had the other night." At once her face grew as absorbed as a child's at the promise of a fairy story. "I dreamed that I went to a very grand ball in a city down below. The ladies were gorgeously dressed, but late in the evening an unknown girl came into the room and everybody turned to look at her, forgetting all the rest of the party." He paused a moment before adding, "I dreamed that that girl was you." "What did they all hev ter say about me?" she eagerly demanded. "To be perfectly frank--you see it was a dream--most of them just exclaimed: 'My God!'" "I don't hardly censure 'em," admitted Blossom. "I reckon I cut a right sorry figger at that party." Henderson laughed aloud. "But don't you see, that wasn't it at all. They were all breathless with admiration. You had the things they would have given all their jewels for--things they can't buy." For a little space she looked at him with serious, pained eyes, suspicious of ridicule, then the expression altered to bewilderment, and her question came in a lowered voice. "Things I hev thet they lacks? What manner of things air them--I mean----those?" "The very rare gifts of originality and an elfin personality," he assured her. "Besides that you have beauty of the freshest and most colorful sort." For a moment Blossom flushed again shyly, then she lifted one hand and pointed across the road.