ere was always a lamentation on that point when she
was gone--and the men agreed that she lacked flesh; but Major Fetridge,
who had known something of the world outside of Sevier in his day, used
to follow her far off to watch her clear, sparkling face. However drunk
he might be, it sobered him. To-day, as she stood among the village
women, whose charms had ripened on the fried meat and black coffee on
which they had been fed since babyhood, she reminded him of a fine proof
engraving among cheap chromos.

How it was that the little Pennsylvanian moved the mules and sluggish
Sevier to life even the major did not know, but it was a fact that she
always left the village more awake and happier than she found it. It was
as if one had sung a stirring song in the market-place.

As she drove away to-day the squire looked after her admiringly. "I
heard you were going to send her North, Mr. Calhoun?" he said to the
paunchy, brisk little man beside him.

"Yes, yes," pulling his black moustache. "Fact is, this is no place for
Isabel, squire. She has no mother: I have to think for the child. She
has kinsfolk in New England, and I'll send her there for a year or two.
To tell you the truth, I can't see her mated with one of these loggish
young ploughmen about Sevier."

"You mean Cabarreux?" said the squire with a significant nod.

"Yes, I mean Cabarreux. 'Twon't do, squire. I've forbidden her to see
him again. Well, what d'ye think of sending her away? I meant to ask
your advice about it."

The squire was more intimate with Mr. Calhoun than any of the other men
in Sevier; but it was the Northerner's practice to take counsel with
them all concerning his endless schemes: he was a friendly, social
fellow, and liked to hear himself explain his plans--just the man to
buttonhole Charon in his boat and get a useful hint or two from him
about the other side. The people of Sevier liked Calhoun, but were a
little afraid of him. His education and mind, they knew, were no better
than theirs; his manners were not as good; but a man who, with but a
hundred dollars in his pocket, could camp down in the woods and evolve
out of the bare earth a farm, a mill, a mica-mine, a house with comforts
and luxuries such as Sevier had never dreamed of, had a quality which
stunned and awed them. A man may know how common are the iron and steel
and coal that go to make up a steam-engine, but none the less does the
mysterious force inside make him stand out o