"Graham; his full name is John Douglass Graham. Just like a hero's in a novel. But Graham never does anything very heroic, I fancy."
"Shall you cut off his skin?"
"Whose? Graham's?"
"How foolish, Mr. Deering. I mean the deer's fur."
"Oh no, certainly not; in America we always serve game with the hide or feathers. In fact, we usually do not remove the wool from our mutton; but knowing that you were accustomed to seeing it dressed after the super-civilized fashion of the Venetians, I have--"
"Mr. Deering, that is stupid. I want his skin and horns; please arrange them for me."
"Yes, Princess; your most humble servant will obey your mandate."
He seized the creature by its slender legs, hoisted it deftly to his shoulders, and disappeared through the side door. Millicent picked up the bit of a note, smoothed it, and laid it at Mrs. Deering's plate on the breakfast table.
Millicent asked Barbara later on in the day who and what John Graham might be. She was told that the man with the bronze hair and strange eyes was a near neighbor, and that she would without doubt soon make his acquaintance.
With this answer Millicent was fain to be content. She thought about him all that day and dreamed of him that night; the next morning his face was not so distinctly in her mind, but her thoughts were constantly busy with weaving romances in which John Graham played a conspicuous part. The girl was indeed a creature "of the stuff which dreams are made of;" the web of her daily life, no matter how common-place its actual experience might be, was rich with her own vivid imaginings, like the gold thread that a weaver twists through a sad-colored fabric.