The Call of the Cumberlands

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."