d the
beauty of her own wholly natural grace.

"I'm glad you think I'm pretty," she said frankly, plainly greatly
pleased, "but I reckon I'd be prettier if I had one of them there
corsets."

His protests to the contrary were not convincing, in the least.

So the lessons from the book did not go so very far that day.

"Furbelows have always interested females, I suppose," said he, "but I
didn't really think you'd lose your interest in spelling-books because
of them."

"I ain't lost interest in spelling-books," she said. "I ain't lost
interest, at all. After I've studied good and hard I can read all about
such things in the picture-papers that Mom Liza has down to the store.
They've got all kinds of pictures in 'em--all of fancy gowns and hats
and things like that. She showed one to me, once, but all I could make
out was just the pictures, and she couldn't manage to make out much
more. She can read the names on all the letters comin' to the
post-office, for there's only three folks ever gets 'em, but she ain't
what you'd really call a scholar."

He laughed heartily. "So, even in the mountains, here, they take the
fashion papers, do they?"

"No; she don't pay for 'em," she gravely answered. "They're always
marked with red ink, 'Sample Copy,' so she says; but they send 'em ev'ry
once a while. If you're in th' post-office, you get a lot o' things,
like that--all sorts o' picture-papers, an' cards, all printed up in
pretty colors, to tell what medicines to take when you get sick."

"Ah, patent-medicine advertisements."

"Yes; that's what she calls 'em, an' she's read me some powerful amazin'
stories out of 'em--them as was in short words--of folks that rose up
almost from th' dead! They're wonderful!"

"They are, indeed!"

"But what I always liked th' best was them there papers tellin' about
clo'es."

"Eternal feminine!"

"I don't know what you mean by that, but they are mighty peart, some o'
them dresses pictured out in them there papers."

"I've not the least doubt of it."

"And I suppose they are th' kind th' girls you know, down in th'
bluegrass, wear for ev'ry day!" she sighed.

He looked at her in quick compassion and in protest.

"Madge," he said, "please listen to me. It's not dress that makes the
woman, any more than it is coats that make the man. You would like me
just as well if I were dressed in homespun, wouldn't you?"

"That's different."

"It isn't; it's not, a bit."

"Laws, yes! It'