So the lessons from the book did not go so very far that day.

“Furbelows have always interested females, I suppose,” said he, “but I didn’t really think you’d lose your interest in spelling-books because of them.”

“I ain’t lost interest in spelling-books,” she said.  “I ain’t lost interest, at all.  After I’ve studied good and hard I can read all about such things in the picture-papers that Mom Liza has down to the store.  They’ve got all kinds of pictures in ’em—­all of fancy gowns and hats and things like that.  She showed one to me, once, but all I could make out was just the pictures, and she couldn’t manage to make out much more.  She can read the names on all the letters comin’ to the post-office, for there’s only three folks ever gets ’em, but she ain’t what you’d really call a scholar.”

He laughed heartily.  “So, even in the mountains, here, they take the fashion papers, do they?”

“No; she don’t pay for ’em,” she gravely answered.  “They’re always marked with red ink, ‘Sample Copy,’ so she says; but they send ’em ev’ry once a while.  If you’re in th’ post-office, you get a lot o’ things, like that—­all sorts o’ picture-papers, an’ cards, all printed up in pretty colors, to tell what medicines to take when you get sick.”

“Ah, patent-medicine advertisements.”

“Yes; that’s what she calls ’em, an’ she’s read me some powerful amazin’ stories out of ’em—­them as was in short words—­of folks that rose up almost from th’ dead!  They’re wonderful!”

“They are, indeed!”

“But what I always liked th’ best was them there papers tellin’ about clo’es.”

“Eternal feminine!”

“I don’t know what you mean by that, but they are mighty peart, some o’ them dresses pictured out in them there papers.”

“I’ve not the least doubt of it.”

“And I suppose they are th’ kind th’ girls you know, down in th’ bluegrass, wear for ev’ry day!” she sighed.

He looked at her in quick compassion and in protest.

“Madge,” he said, “please listen to me.  It’s not dress that makes the woman, any more than it is coats that make the man.  You would like me just as well if I were dressed in homespun, wouldn’t you?”

“That’s different.”

“It isn’t; it’s not, a bit.”

“Laws, yes!  It’s—­oh—­heaps different!” She nodded her lovely head in firm conviction.  “It’s heaps different and I’m goin’ to know more about such things as clo’es.  I ain’t plumb poverty poor, like lots o’ folks, here in th’ mountings.  I got land down in th’ valley I get rent from—­fifty dollars, every year!  I’m goin’ to find out about such things.”

He looked at her, almost worried.  It would be a pity, he thought instantly, for this charming child of nature to become sophisticated and be fashionably gowned; but, of course, he made no protest.

“You can learn a little something about such things if you stay right here,” said he.  “I’m going to have visitors, sometime before the summer’s over, at my camp.  My aunt, Miss Alathea, will be here, and our old friend, Colonel Sandusky Doolittle.  He’s a great horseman.”