might have well been dazzled by the really handsome chap. This simple
country girl was not--but, on the whole, she liked him.

Her hand which held the spelling-book dropped, unconsciously, so that
the open pages of the volume were revealed, upside down, against her
knee.

"Studying your lessons?" he inquired, quite casually, good-naturedly,
coming nearer.

Again her disappointment rushed upon her. Impulsively she told him of
it.

"Oh," said she, "I don't know how! I bought me this yere book down in
th' settlement, an' thought I'd learn things outen it. But how'm I goin'
to learn? I can't make nothin' out of it to get a start with."

Instantly the pathos of this situation, not its humor, made appeal to
him.

"Isn't there a school here?" he inquired.

"Nearest school is twenty mile acrost, over on Turkey Creek," she said
briefly. "Oncet there was a nearer one, but teacher was a Hatfield, and
McCoys got him, of course. This was McCoy kentry 'fore they all got so
killed off. He ought to 'a' knowed better than come over here to teach."

This casual reference to a famous feud--news of whose infamy had spread
far, far beyond the mountains which had hatched it--from the lips of one
so young and lovely (for he had long ago admitted to himself that as she