that wonderful--that irrepressible--upward impulse of young feminine
America, that instinctive affinity for the finer things of life, that
marvellous understanding of graces and refinements, and that pathetic and
persistent groping after them which is the marked characteristic of
America's daughters. The child was not yet sixteen, a fair little thing
with soft ashen hair and honest gray eyes, the pink upon her cheek like
that of a New England girl.

At first this marriage--which had been so unkindly conducted by Sammy, used
by him apparently as a weapon of affront--seemed to bring with it only
good, only happiness. The boy was more contented at home, less wayward, and
the feeling of apprehension that had dwelt continually in the hearts of Pap
and Aunt Cornelia ever since his adolescence now slept. The little
Huldy--her own small cup apparently full of happiness--was all affectionate
gratitude and docility. She healed the bruises Sammy made, poured balm in
the wounds he inflicted; she was sunny, obedient, grateful enough for two.

But a new trait was developed in Sammy's nature--perversity. Life was made
smooth to his feet; the things he needed--even the things which he merely
desired--were procured and brought to him. Love brooded above and around
him--timid, chidden, but absolute, adoring. Nothing was left him--no
occupation was offered for his energies--but to resent these things, to
quarrel with his benefits. And now the quarrel began.

Its outcome was this: Toward the end of the first year of the marriage,
upon a bleak, forbidding March day--a day of bitter wind and icy
sleet,--there rode one to the Overholt door who called upon Pap and Aunt
Cornelia to hitch up and come with all possible haste to old Eph'm
Blackshears, Cornelia's father--a man who had lived to fourscore, and who
now lay at his last, asking for his daughter, his baby chile, Cornely.