esome. Her right name is Clementina Haddox;
but I reckon every livin' soul hev forgot' it but me. She is jes
Meddlesome by name, an' meddlesome by natur'."

He suddenly turned, gazing up the steep, wooded slope with an expectant
mien, for the gentle rustling amidst the dense, red leaves of the
sumac-bushes heralded an approach.

"That mus' be Meddy now," he commented, "with her salt-risin' bread. She
lowed she war goin' ter fetch you-uns some whenst I tol' her you-uns war
lackin'."

For the camp-hunt had already been signalized by divers disasters: the
store of loaves in the wagon had been soaked by an inopportune shower;
the young mountaineer who had combined the offices of guide and cook was
the victim of an accidental discharge of a fowling-piece, receiving a
load of bird-shot full in his face. Though his injury was slight, he had
returned home, promising to supply his place by sending his brother, who
had not yet arrived. Purcell's boast that he could bake ash-cake proved
a bluff, and although the party could and did broil bacon and even birds
on the coals, they were reduced to the extremity of need for the staff
of life.

Hence they were predisposed in the ministrant's favor as she appeared,
and were surprised to find that Meddlesome, instead of masterful and
middle-aged, was a girl of eighteen, looking very shy and appealing as
she paused on the verge of the flaring sumac copse, one hand lifted to
a swaying bough, the other arm sustaining a basket. Even her coarse gown
lent itself to pleasing effect, since its dull-brown hue composed well
with the red and russet glow of the leaves about her, and its short
waist, close sleeves, and scant skirt, reaching to the instep, the
immemorial fashion of the hills, were less of a grotesque rusticity
since there was prevalent elsewhere a vogue of quasi-Empire modes, of
which the cut of her garb was reminiscent. A saffron kerchief about her
throat had in its folds a necklace of over-cup acorns in three strands,
and her hair, meekly parted on her forehead, was of a lustrous brown,
and fell in heavy undulations on her shoulders. There was a delicate but
distinct tracery of bine veins in her milky-white complexion, and she
might have seemed eminently calculated for meddling disastrously with
the peace of mind of the mountain youth were it not for the preoccupied
expression of her eyes. Though large, brown and long-lashed, they were
full of care and perplexity, and a frowning,