breast as she arose. But her face, by no means handsome in the
common meaning, was marked with a breadth and strength of outline
and expression that approached the heroic--a face that once seen
is forever fixed in memory--a personage once met one must know
more of. And so it was, that an hour later, as I strolled with the
old man about his farm, looking, to all intents, with the
profoundest interest at his Devonshires, Shorthorns, Jerseys, and
the like, I lured from him something of an outline of his
daughter's history.

"There're no better girl 'n Marthy!" he said, mechanically
answering some ingenious allusion to her worth. "And yit," he went
on reflectively, stooping from his seat in the barn door and with
his open jack-knife picking up a little chip with the point of the
blade--"and yit--you wouldn't believe it--but Marthy was the
oldest o' three daughters, and hed--I may say--hed more advantages
o' marryin'--and yit, as I was jest goin' to say, she's the very
one 'at didn't marry. Hed every advantage--Marthy did. W'y, we
even hed her educated--her mother was a-livin' then--and we was
well enough fixed to afford the educatin' of her, mother allus
contended--and we was--besides, it was Marthy's notion, too, and
you know how women is thataway when they git their head set. So we
sent Marthy down to Indianop'lus, and got her books and putt her
in school there, and paid fer her keepin' and ever'thing; and she
jest--well, you may say, lived there stiddy fer better'n four
year. 0' course she'd git back ever' once-an-a-while, but her
visits was allus, some-way-another, onsatisfactory-like, 'cause,
you see, Marthy was allus my favorite, and I'd allus laughed and
told her 'at the other girls could git married if they wanted, but
SHE was goin' to be the 'nest-egg' of our family, and 'slong as I