"Thank you, my dear. You must be very lonely, up here all alone."
"I am, sometimes," said the girl, "but I have lots of fun, too. The woods are full of friends. Th' birds an' squirrels ain't afraid o' me. They seem to think I'm a wild thing, like 'em."
"It's true," said Frank, with an admiring, cheering look at the little country girl. "Their confidence in her is wonderful."
The bluegrass girl's annoyance was increasing. She had come up to the mountains thinking that, among such crude surroundings, her gowns and the undoubted beauty they adorned, would hold the center of the stage, and by contrast, hold Layson quite enthralled; but here, instead, was a brown-faced country maid in grotesque, homemade costume, attracting most of his attention. She was conscious that by showing her discomfiture she was not strengthening her own position, but she could not hide it, could not curb her tongue.
"A rider of races," said she; "a tamer of animals! What accomplishments! Do you actually live here, all alone?"
"Come," said Madge, determined to be pleasant, "and I'll show you." She led the bluegrass girl to a convenient point from which her cabin was in sight.
"In that little hut!" said Barbara, not impressed as Madge had innocently thought she would be. "Shocking!"
The girl was angered, now. "So sorry I didn't have your opinion afore! But, maybe, you wouldn't think it were so awful, if you knowed how 'twere I come to live there."
Frank had written something of the poor girl's tragic story to his aunt. She was all interest. "Won't you tell us, please?" she asked.
Holton seemed to show a strange disinclination to listen to the narrative. "Ain't got no time for stories," he objected. "Gettin' late."