"La!" exclaimed Black Granny at the announcement of Captain Clark. "Miss Judy?" Black Granny had nursed Miss Judy from the cradle.
Sedately Miss Judy came down the long staircase,—not the child that Clark remembered, but a woman, petite, serious. The chestnut brown curls with a glint of gold were caught with a high back comb, and a sweeping gown had replaced the short petticoats that lately tripped over the foothills of the Blue Ridge.
"My pretty cousin going to marry that ugly man?" exclaimed Harriet, when she heard of the early engagement.
There was nothing effeminate about Clark, nor artificial. His features were rugged almost to plainness; his head was high from the ear to the top, a large brain chamber.
"Absolutely beautiful," said Judy to herself, associating those bronzed features with endless winds that blew on far-off mountains.
Behind the respectable old Hancock silver, Judy's mother turned the tea and talked. Turning up his laced sleeves to carve the mutton, Colonel Hancock asked a thousand questions regarding that wonderful journey.
"We passed the winter on the Pacific, then crossed the mountains, and my division came down the Yellowstone," Clark was saying. "By the way, Judy, I have named a river for you,—the Judith."
A peal of laughter rang through the dining-room.
"Judith! Judith, did you say? Why, Captain Clark, my name is Julia."
Clark was confounded. He almost feared Judy was making fun of him.