The girl's splendid physique, her athletic tendencies, her endurance and pluck, compelled Jock's masculine admiration. Her love for her brother, her tenderness and cheerfulness toward him, won his heart; but her mental make-up, her strange seriousness where her own private interests were concerned, caused the young fellow no end of amusement and delight. He had never seen any one in the least like her, and the new sensation held him captive.
Poor Jock! He was never again to walk through life without a chain and ball; but little he heeded that while he had strength and spirit to drag them.
With Drew's partial recovery the bungalow household lost its head a little. Aunt Sally's gratitude overflowed into every house in St. Angé. She felt as if the natives, not the pine-laded air, had been instrumental in this regained health and joyousness.
"I can never thank you enough," was her constant greeting; and so sincere was her gratitude that eventually the back doors of the squalid houses opened to her unconsciously—and of true friendship there is no greater proof in a primitive village. Sitting in their kitchens, it was easy for her to reach down into their hearts, and many a St. Angé woman poured her troubles into Aunt Sally's ears, and went forever after with uplifted head.
"Why, my dear," the old lady said to Ralph, after Peggy Falstar had taken her into her confidence, "these people are much like others, only they have the rough bark on. They are a great deal more vital—the bark has, somehow, kept the sap richer."
Drew laughed heartily.
"The polishing takes something away, Auntie," he replied. "The bark is hard to get through; it's tough and prickly and not always lovely, but it's the sap that counts in every case, and that's what I used to tell you and Connie. Every time I tapped these people up here, I saw and felt the rich possibilities."
"Now, you go straight to sleep," his aunt always commanded at that juncture.
She was not yet able to face the probability of a final settlement in these backwoods, but she saw with alarm that her nephew was planting his hopes deep and accepting the inevitable.
"It's all such a horrible sacrifice of his young life," she confided to Constance.