"I have not noticed her."
"You have not seen the Caughnawaga girl?"
"No. I remain incurious concerning servants," said I, drily.
"Is it so!" he laughed. "Well, then,—for all that they have a right to gold binding on their hats,—the gay youth of Johnstown, yes, and of Schenectady, too, have not remained indifferent to the Scotch girl of Douw Fonda, Penelope Grant!"
I shrugged and lifted my saddle.
"Every man to his taste," said I. "Some eat woodchucks, some porcupines, and others the tail of a beaver. Venison smacks sweeter to me."
Nick laughed again. "When she reads the old man to sleep and takes her knitting to the porch, you should see the ring of gallants every afternoon a-courting her!—and their horses tied to every tree around the house as at a quilting!
"But there's no quilting frolic; no supper; no dance;—nothing more than a yellow-haired slip of a wench busy knitting there in the sun, and looking at none o' them but intent on her needles and with that faint smile she wears——"
"Go court her," said I, laughing; and led my mare into her warm stall.
"You'll court her yourself, one day!" he shouted after me, as he gathered bridle. "And if you do, God help you, John Drogue, for they say she's a born disturber of quiet men's minds, and mistress of a very mischievous and deadly art!"