seriously.

"Helen Sheppard, I think on the occasion of your arrival in a new
country a little plain talk will be wholesome. Somehow or other,
perhaps because of a crowd of idle men back there in the colonies,
possibly from your own misguided fancy, you imagined you were fair to
look at. It is well to be undeceived."

Scorn spoke in Helen's voice. She was angry because of having been
interested in a man, and allowed that interest to betray her into a
girlish expectation that he would treat her as all other men had. The
mirror, even in the dim light, spoke more truly than she, for it
caught the golden tints of her luxuriant hair, the thousand beautiful
shadows in her great, dark eyes, the white glory of a face fair as a
star, and the swelling outline of neck and shoulders.

With a sudden fiery impetuosity she flung the glass to the floor,
where it was broken into several pieces.

"How foolish of me! What a temper I have!" she exclaimed repentantly.
"I'm glad I have another glass. Wouldn't Mr. Jonathan Zane, borderman,
Indian fighter, hero of a hundred battles and never a sweetheart, be
flattered? No, most decidedly he wouldn't. He never looked at me. I
don't think I expected that; I'm sure I didn't want it; but still he
might have--Oh! what am I thinking, and he a stranger?"

Before Helen lost herself in slumber on that eventful evening, she
vowed to ignore the borderman; assured herself that she did not want
to see him again, and, rather inconsistently, that she would cure him
of his indifference.