one now?" demanded Laurella with asperity.

"You mustn't couple my name with Mr. Stoddard's that way," Johnnie told
her. "He's never thought of me, except as a poor girl who needs help
mighty bad; and he's so kind-hearted and generous he's ready to do for
each and every that's worthy of it. But--not that way--mother, you
mustn't ever suppose for a minute that he'd think of me in that way."

"Well, I wish't I may never!" Laurella exclaimed. "Did I mention any
particular way that the man was supposed to be thinking about you? Can't
I speak a word without your biting my head off for it? As for what Mr.
Gray Stoddard thinks of you, let me tell you, child, a body has only to
see his eyes when he's looking at you."

"Mother--Oh, mother!" protested Johnnie.

"Well, if he can look that way I reckon I can speak of it," returned
Laurella, with some reason.

"I want you to promise never to name it again, even to me," said Johnnie
solemnly, as they came to the steps of the big lead-coloured house. "You
surely wouldn't say such a thing to any one else. I wish you'd forget it
yourself."

"We-ell," hesitated Laurella, "if you feel so strong; about it, I reckon
I'll do as you say. But there ain't anything in that to hinder me from
being friends with Mr. Stoddard. I feel sure that him and me would get
on together fine. He favours my people, the Passmores. My daddy was just
such an upstanding, dark-complected feller as he is. He's got the look
in the eye, too."

Johnnie gasped as she remembered that the grandfather of whom her mother
spoke was Virgil Passmore, and called to mind the story of the borrowed
wedding coat.

CHAPTER XV

THE FEET OF THE CHILDREN

The mountain people, being used only to one class, never find themselves
consciously in the society of their superiors. Johnnie Consadine had
been unembarrassed and completely mistress of the situation in the
presence of Charlie Conroy, who did not fail after the Uplift dance to
make some further effort to meet the "big red-headed girl," as he called
her. She was aware that social overtures from such a person were not to
be received by her, and she put them aside quite as though she had been,
according to her own opinion, above rather than beneath them. The
lover-like pretensions of Shade Buckheath, a man dangerous, remorseless,
as careless of the rights of others as any tiger in the jungle, she
regarded with negligent composure. But Gray Stoddard--ah, there her
treach