He watched her expression, and her lips curved up in the same
sweetness of smile that had first captivated and helped to mold him.
"It's lovely!" she cried, with frank delight. "It's a picture."
"Wait!" he commanded. Then, turning toward the house, he sent out the
long, peculiarly mournful call of the whippoorwill, and, at the signal,
the door opened, and on the threshold Adrienne saw a slender figure.
She had called the cabin with its shaded dooryard a picture, but now
she knew she had been wrong. It was only a background. It was the girl
herself who made and completed the picture. She stood there in the wild
simplicity that artists seek vainly to reproduce in posed figures. Her
red calico dress was patched, but fell in graceful lines to her slim
bare ankles, though the first faint frosts had already fallen.
Her red-brown hair hung loose and in masses about the oval of a face
in which the half-parted lips were dashes of scarlet, and the eyes
large violet pools. She stood with her little chin tilted in a half-
wild attitude of reconnoiter, as a fawn might have stood. One brown arm
and hand rested on the door frame, and, as she saw the other woman, she
colored adorably.
Adrienne thought she had never seen so instinctively and unaffectedly
lovely a face or figure. Then the girl came down the steps and ran
toward them.
"Drennie," said the man, "this is Sally. I want you two to love each
other." For an instant, Adrienne Lescott stood looking at the mountain
girl, and then she opened both her arms.
"Sally," she cried, "you adorable child, I do love you!"
The girl in the calico dress raised her face, and her eyes were
glistening.
"I'm obleeged ter ye," she faltered. Then, with open and wondering
admiration she stood gazing at the first "fine lady" upon whom her
glance had ever fallen.
Samson went over and took Sally's hand.
"Drennie," he said, softly, "is there anything the matter with her?"
Adrienne Lescott shook her head.
"I understand," she said.
"I sent the others on," he went on quietly, "because I wanted that
first we three should meet alone. George and Wilfred are going to stop
at my uncle's house, but, unless you'd rather have it otherwise, Sally
wants you here."
"Do I stop now?" the girl asked.
But the man shook his head.
"I want you to meet my other people first."