and would not be coaxed down. The next day she had forgotten
that she was angry.

Her mother showed no surprise at any of her moods. Easter was
not like other " gals," she said; she had always been" quar," and
she reckoned would" al'ays be that way." She objected in no wise
to Clayton's intimacy with her. The furriner," she told Raines, was
the only man who had ever been able to manage her, and if she
wanted Easter to do anything " ag'in her will, she went to him fust
"-a simple remark that threw the mountaineer into deep
thoughtfulness.

Indeed, this sense of power that Clayton felt over the wilful,
passionate creature thrilled him with more pleasure than he would
have been willing to admit; at the same time it suggested to him a
certain responsibility. Why not make use of it, and a good use?
The girl was perhaps deplorably ignorant, could do but little more
than read and write; but she was susceptible of development, and
at times apparently conscious of the need of it and desirous for it.
Once he had carried her a handful of violets, and thereafter an old
pitcher that stood on a shelf blossomed every day with
wild-flowers. He had transplanted a vine from the woods and
taught her to train it over the porch, and the first hint of tenderness
he found in her nature was in the care of that plant. He had taken
her a book full of pictures and fashion-plates, and he had noticed a
quick and ingenious adoption of some of its hints in her dress.

One afternoon, as he lay on his bed in a darkened corner of his
room, a woman's shadow passed across the wall, returned, and a
moment later he saw Easter's face at the window. He had lain