CHAPTER XI

"A RURAL BEAUTY"


Nan Sherwood could not bear to see anybody cry. Her heart had already
gone out to the farmer's wife whose foolish daughter had left home, and
to see the good woman sobbing so behind her apron, won every grain of
sympathy and pity in Nan's nature.

"Oh, you poor soul!" cried the girl, hovering over Mrs. Morton, and
putting an arm across her broad, plump shoulders. "Don't cry--don't,
don't cry! I'm _sure_ the girls will come back. They are foolish to
run away; but surely they will be glad to get back to their dear,
dear homes."

"You don't know my Sallie," sobbed the woman.

"Oh! but she can't forget you--of course she can't," Nan said. "Why ever
did they want to run away from home?"

"Them plagued movin' picters," Mr. Snubbins said gruffly, blowing his
nose. "I don't see how I kin tell my woman about Celia."

"It was that there 'Rural Beauty' done it," Mr. Morton broke in
peevishly. "Wish't I'd never let them film people camp up there on my
paster lot and take them picters on my farm. Sallie was jest carried away
with it. She acted in that five-reel film, 'A Rural Beauty.' And I must
say she looked as purty as a peach in it."