hich in turn always led to tears. She often blamed Dic for the
altered condition, though it was all owing to the change in herself.
There was no change in him. He sought the girl's society as frankly as
when they were children, though at the time of which I write he had made
no effort to "keep company" with her. She, at fifteen, believing herself
to be a young lady, really wished for the advances she feared. Sukey
Yates, who was only fourteen, had "company" every Sunday evening, and
went to all the social frolics for miles around. Polly Kaster, not
sixteen, was soon to be married to Bantam Rhodes. Many young men had
looked longingly upon Rita, who was the most beautiful girl on Blue; but
the Chief Justice, with her daughter's hearty approval, drove all
suitors away. The girl was wholly satisfied with Dic, who was "less than
kin," but very much "more than kind." He came to see the family, herself
included; but when he went out to social functions, church socials,
corn-huskings, and dances he took Sukey Yates, or some other girl, and
upon such evenings our own little maiden went to bed dissatisfied with
the world at large, and herself in particular. Of course, she would not
have gone to dances, even with Dic. She had regard for the salvation of
her soul, and the Chief Justice, in whom the girl had unquestioning
faith, held dancing to be the devil's chief instrument of damnation.
Even the church socials were not suitable for young girls, as you will
agree if you read farther; and Mrs. Margarita, with a sense of propriety
inherited from better days, tried to hold her daughter aloof from the
country society, which entertained honest but questionable views on many
subjects.

Dic paid his informal visit to the Bays household in the evenings, and
at the time of the girl's growing inclination she would gaze longingly
up the river watching for him; while the sun, regretful to leave the
land, wherein her hero dwelt, sank slowly westward to shine upon those
poor waste places that knew no Diccon. When she would see him coming
she would run away for fear of herself, and seek her room in the loft,
where she would scrub her face and hands in a hopeless effort to remove
the sun-brown. Then she would scan her face in a mirror, for which Dic
had paid two beautiful bearskins, hoping to convince herself that she
was not altogether hideous.

"If I could only be half as pretty as Sukey Yates," she often thought,
little dreaming that Sukey, a