Part 18 (2/2)

The girl drew back in embarra.s.sment.

But there was no hesitation on the part of the young man. Before she could recover from her astonishment, he caught her in his arms and kissed her again and again, until she struggled from his embrace. ”You--you must not,” she gasped.

”Why not?” he demanded laughingly. ”Has anyone a better right? I have waited a long while for this, and I mean to make up now for lost time.”

He took a step toward her again, but Sammy held him off at arm's length, as she repeated, ”No--no--you must not; not now.” Young Stewart was helpless. And the discovery that she was stronger than this man brought to the girl a strange feeling, as of shame.

”How strong you are,” he said petulantly; ceasing his efforts.

Then carefully surveying the splendidly proportioned and developed young woman, he added, ”And how beautiful!”

Under his look, Sammy's face flushed painfully, even to her neck and brow; and the man, seeing her confusion, laughed again. Then, seating himself in the only rocking-chair in the room, the young gentleman leisurely removed his gloves, looking around the while with an amused expression on his face, while the girl stood watching him. At last, he said impatiently, ”Sit down, sit down, Sammy. You look at me as if I were a ghost.”

Unconsciously, she slipped into the speech of the old days, ”You sure don't look much like you used to. I never see n.o.body wear such clothes as them. Not even Dad Howitt, when he first come. Do you wear 'em every day?”

Ollie frowned; ”You're just like all the rest, Sammy. Why don't you talk as you write? You've improved a lot in your letters. If you talk like that in the city; people will know in a minute that you are from the country.”

At this, Sammy rallied her scattered wits, and the wide, questioning look was in her eyes, as she replied quietly, ”Thank you. I'll try to remember. But tell me, please, what harm could it do, if people did know I came from the country?”

It was Ollie's turn to be amazed. ”Why you can talk!” he said.

”Where did you learn?” And the girl answered simply that she had picked it up from the old shepherd.

This little incident put Sammy more at ease, and she skilfully led her companion to speak of the city and his life there. Of his studies the young fellow had little to say, and, to her secret delight, the girl found that she had actually made greater progress with her books than had her lover with all his supposed advantages.

But of other things, of the gaiety and excitement of the great city, of his new home, the wealth of his uncle, and his own bright prospects, Ollie spoke freely, never dreaming the girl had already seen the life he painted in such glowing colors through the eyes of one who had been careful to point out the froth and foam of it all. Neither did the young man discover in the quiet questions she asked that Sammy was seeking to know what in all this new world he had found that he could make his own as the thing most worth while.

The backwoods girl had never seen that type of man to whom the life of the city, only, is life. Ollie was peculiarly fitted by nature to absorb quickly those things of the world, into which he had gone, that were most different from the world he had left; and there remained scarcely a trace of his earlier wilderness training.

But there is that in life that lies too deep for any mere change of environment to touch. Sammy remembered a lesson the shepherd had given her: gentle spirit may express itself in the rude words of illiteracy; it is not therefore rude. Ruffianism may speak the language of learning or religion; it is ruffianism still. Strength may wear the garb of weakness, and still be strong; and a weakling may carry the weapons of strength, but fight with a faint heart.

So, beneath all the changes that had come to her backwoods lover, Sammy felt that Ollie himself was unchanged. It was as though he had learned a new language, but still said the same things.

Sammy, too, had entered a new world. Step by step, as the young man had advanced in his schooling, and, dropping the habits and customs of the backwoods, had conformed in his outward life to his new environment, the girl had advanced in her education under the careful hand of the old shepherd. Ignorant still of the false standards and the petty ambitions that are so large a part of the complex world, into which he had gone, she had been introduced to a world where the life itself is the only thing worth while. She had seen nothing of the glittering tinsel of that cheap culture that is death to all true refinement, But in the daily companions.h.i.+p of her gentle teacher, she had lived in touch with true aristocracy, the aristocracy of heart and spirit.

Young Matt and Jim had thought that, in Sammy's education, the bond between the girl and her lover would be strengthened. They had thought to see her growing farther and farther from the life of the hills; the life to which they felt that they must always belong. But that was because Young Matt and Jim did not know the kind of education the girl was getting.

So Ollie had come back to his old home to measure things by his new standard; and he had come back, too, to be measured according to the old, old standard. If the man's eyes were dimmed by the flash and sparkle that play upon the surface of life, the woman's vision was strong and clear to look into the still depths.

Later in the day, as they walked together up the Old Trail to Sammy's Lookout, the girl tried to show him some of the things that had been revealed to her in the past months. But the young fellow could not follow where she led, and answered her always with some flippant remark, or with the superficial philosophy of his kind.

When he tried to turn the talk to their future, she skillfully defeated his purpose, or was silent; and when he would claim a lover's privileges, she held him off. Upon his demanding a reason for her coldness, she answered, ”Don't you see that everything is different now? We must learn to know each other over again.”

”But you are my promised wife.”

”I promised to be the wife of a backwoodsman,” she answered. ”I cannot keep that promise, for that man is dead. You are a man of the city, and I am scarcely acquainted with you.”

Young Stewart found himself not a little puzzled by the situation.

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