Even in her consternation she had time to feel the added shock of
disappointment. She had always present in her mind an ideal picture of
this man whom she had never seen or even heard described. Joseph
Corbin had been tall, dark, with flowing hair and long mustache. He
had flashing fiery eyes which were capable of being subdued by a
single glance of gentleness--her own. He was tempestuous, quick, and
passionate, but in quarrel would be led by a smile. He was a combination
of an Italian brigand and a poker player whom she had once met on a
Mississippi steamboat. He would wear a broad-brimmed soft hat, a red
shirt, showing his massive throat and neck--and high boots! Alas! the
man before her was of medium height, with light close-cut hair, hollow
cheeks that seemed to have been lately scraped with a razor, and
light gray troubled eyes. A suit of cheap black, ill fitting, hastily
acquired, and provincial even for Pineville, painfully set off these
imperfections, to which a white cravat in a hopelessly tied bow
was superadded. A terrible idea that this combination of a country
undertaker and an ill-paid circuit preacher on probation was his best
holiday tribute to her, and not a funeral offering to Mr. Jeffcourt,
took possession of her. And when, with feminine quickness, she saw his
eyes wander over her own fine clothes and festal figure, and sink again
upon the floor in a kind of hopeless disappointment equal to her
own, she felt ready to cry. But the more terrible sound of laughter
approaching the house from the garden recalled her. Her friends were
coming.

"For Heaven's sake," she broke out desperately, "didn't you get my note
at the station telling you not to come?"

His face grew darker, and then took up its look of hopeless resignation,
as if this last misfortune was only an accepted part of his greater