Then, remembering suddenly an old chest which held her mother’s wedding finery, she strained her fine young muscles as she dragged it out of storage; and sitting on the floor beside it where the great blaze of pine-knots in the big “mud-and-broke-rock” fireplace lighted it and her with flickering brilliance, she went through it with reverent fingers, searching, searching for such garments and such adornments as it might hold to make her fit to meet the friends of the young lowlander who had captured her imagination with his bravery, resource and courtesy.

There were a few things in the chest which pleased her, and she smiled as she discovered them, smiled as she tried them on, smiled as she saw the image wearing them in the cracked mirror by the side of the big fireplace.  She had to make experiments with dripping tallow dips before she got a light which would enable her to get the full effect of an ornate old poke-bonnet which was the chief treasure from the chest, but finally she did so, and exclaimed in pleasure as she managed it.

It was, indeed, a charming picture which she saw there in the glass—­a face with rosy cheeks, bright eyes, red lips set off with softly waving auburn hair and framed delightfully in the old arch of shirred red silk—­and when she took it off, at last, she was convinced that one, at least, of her big problems had been solved.  She had a bonnet, certainly, which was as lovely as the finest thing that any bluegrass belle could wear.  There was not the slightest doubt that all its shirring was of real, real silk!  She had run her fingers over it caressingly, delighted by its sheen and gloss when she had been a little girl; now she fondled it with loving touch, high hopes.  Surely no young lady visitor, even from the far off and to her mysterious bluegrass could have anything much finer than that bonnet with its silken facings!  She tied the wide strings underneath her chin in a great, flaring bow, and peeped forth from the cavernous depths of the arched “poke” with quite unconscious coquetry, flirting, with the keenest relish and most completely childish pleasure with the charming creature whom she saw reflected on the little mirror’s cracked, imperfect surface.

It was while she stood thus, innocently coquetting with her own delightful picture, that a great plan for the plenishment of her otherwise imperfect wardrobe popped into her active, searching mind.  Carefully she considered this, first before the glass and then, with feet crossed and clasped hands between her knees, before the roaring fire of resinous pine-knots in the old fireplace.

Having finally decided that it was a good one, she went about the cabin seeing to the fastenings of doors and windows, wholly unafraid despite her solitude.  There was but one way of approaching this, her fastness in the rocks, and the bridge, had been drawn up for the night.  Safe she was as any Rhenish baron in his moated stronghold.