. They're pretty enough to look at when
you're feelin' first-rate, but when you git the neuralgy they sort of
turns yo' stomach. I've a taste for sober colours in men and caliky."

"I think he looks beautiful," said Sairy Jane, her eyes on the cravat,
and Nicholas felt a sudden glow of gratitude, and silently resolved to
save up until he had enough money to buy her a hair ribbon.

"I ain't sayin' he don't," returned Marthy Burr with a severe glance in
the direction of her eldest daughter, who was minding Jubal in the
kitchen doorway. "Thar's red heads an' red heads, an' his ain't no
redder than the reddest. But he came honestly by it, which is more than
some folks can say as is got yellow. His father had it befo' him, an'
thar's one good thing about it, you've got to be born with it or you
ain't goin' to come by it no other way. I never seed a dyer that could
set hair that thar colour 'cep'n the Lord Himself--an' I ain't one to
deny that the Lord has got good taste in His own line."

Then, as Nicholas took up his hat, she added: "If they ask after me,
Nick, be sure an' say I'm jes' po'ly."

Nicholas nodded and went out, followed to the road by Sairy Jane and
Jubal, while his stepmother called after him to walk in the grass and
try to keep his feet clean.

When he reached Kingsborough and crossed the green to the Burwell's
house, which was in the lane called "Back Street," he fell to a creeping
pace, held back by the fluttering of his pulses. Not until he saw Juliet
standing at the little whitewashed gate did he brace himself to the full
courage of approaching. When he spoke her name she opened the gate and
gave him her hand, while all sense of diffidence fell from him.

"I've been looking at you for a long ways," he said boldly, "an' you
were just like one of them tall lilies bordering the walk."

She blushed, turning her clear eyes upon him, and he felt a great desire
to kiss the folds of her skirt or the rose above her left temple. He had
never seen any one so good or so kind or so beautiful, and he vowed
passionately in his rustic little heart that he would always love her
best--best of all--that he would fight for her if he might, or work for
her if she needed it. There was none like her--not his stepmother--not
Sairy Jane--not even Eugenia. She was different--something of finer
clay, made to be waited upon and worshipped like the picture of the
goddess standing on the moon that he had seen in the judge's stud