elbow and filled them with silk lining, ruffled with lace. If
they wore high neckbands, she had none, and used a flat lace
collar. If they cut their waists straight around and gathered
their skirts on six yards full, she ran hers down to a little
point front and back, that made her look slenderer, and put only
half as much goods in her skirt. Maybe Laddie rode as well as
she could; he couldn't manage a horse any better, and aside from
him there wasn't a man we knew who would have tried to ride some
of the animals she did.

If she ever worked a stroke, no one knew it. All day long she
sat in the parlour, the very best one, every day; or on benches
under the trees with embroidery frames or books, some of them
fearful, big, difficult looking ones, or rode over the country.
She rode in sunshine and she rode in storm, until you would think
she couldn't see her way through her tangled black hair. She
rode through snow and in pouring rain, when she could have stayed
out of it, if she had wanted to. She didn't seem to be afraid of
anything on earth or in Heaven. Every one thought she was like
her father and didn't believe there was any God; so when she came
among us at church or any public gathering, as she sometimes did,
people were in no hurry to be friendly, while she looked straight
ahead and never spoke until she was spoken to, and then she was
precise and cold, I tell you.

Men took off their hats, got out of the road when she came
pounding along, and stared after her like "be-addled mummies," my
mother said. But that was all she, or any one else, could say.
The young fellows were wild about her, and if they tried to sidle
up to her in the hope that they might lead her horse or get to