"Mary Jo, if you unwrap your hair your mother will whip you," she
said suddenly, and went on without a perceptible change of tone,
"Keren-happuch is an ugly name, and I don't like it--though grandma says
we oughtn't to think any of the Bible names ugly, not even Gog. She
is quite an authority on Scripture, is grandma, and she can repeat the
first chapter in Chronicles backward, which the minister couldn't do
when he tried."

"I'd like to hear the name that would sound ugly on your lips, Miss
Keren-happuch."

If the sons of farmers had sought to enchant her ears with similar
strains, there was no hint of it in the smiling eyes she lifted to his.
The serenity of her look added, he thought, to her resemblance to some
pagan goddess--not to Artemis nor to Aphrodite, but to some creature
compounded equally of earth and sky. Io perhaps, or Europa? By Jove he
had it at last--the Europa of Veronese!

"There'll have to be a big frost before the persimmons get sweet," she
observed in a voice that was remarkably deep and full for a woman.
With the faint light on her classic head and her milky skin, he found
a delicious piquancy in the remark. Had she gossiped, had she even
laughed, the effect would have been disastrous. Europa, he was vaguely
aware, would hardly have condescended to coquetry. Her speech, like her
glance, would be brief, simple, direct.

"Tell me about the people here," he asked after a pause, in which he
plucked idly at the red-topped orchard grass through which they were
passing. Behind them the six little negroes walked primly in single
file, Mary Jo in the lead and a chocolate-coloured atom of two toddling