“Howdy, Miss Barbarous, howdy!” she exclaimed and held her hand out to the handsomely dressed girl.

But Miss Barbara was annoyed by the whole happening.  She felt that this uncultivated country girl was getting far too much attention.  The child’s unconscious pun upon her name infuriated her.  She did not answer her, but raised a lorgnette and stared at her.

Madge was ready with an instant sympathy.  “Oh, that’s why you couldn’t see, poor thing!  Spectacles at your age!” Whether she really thought this was the case, not even Frank could tell by looking at her.

Miss Holton was incensed.  The haughty treatment she had planned to, give the mountain girl had not had the results she had expected.  “There’s nothing whatever the matter with my eyes!” she exclaimed hastily.

“Wouldn’t think you’d need a machine to help you star-gaze at folks, then,” said the mountain girl.  “But maybe it’s the fashion in the bluegrass.”

Frank hurried up with Holton, planning a diversion.  “This is Mr. Holton, Madge.”

“Howdy, sir,” said she, and then started in astonishment.  “Ain’t I seen your face before, sir?”

“Wal, I reckon not,” said Holton most uneasily.  “I was never hyar in these hyar mountings afore.”

She stepped closer to him, gazing straight at his grey eyes.  They seemed strangely to recall the very distant past, she knew not how.  There were other things about him which seemed much more immediately familiar, although his more elaborate garb prevented her, for the moment, from recognizing him as the stranger with the hammer, who had, that day of the forest-fire, been tap-tapping on the rocks upon her pasture-land.  “Your eyes seem to bring something back.”  She plainly paled.  She knew that their suggestion was a dreadful one, but could not make it definite.

Miss Alathea noted her agitation instantly, and hurried to her side.  “Poor child, what is the matter?”

Madge had regained control of her features, which, for an instant, had shown plain horror.  “Tain’t nothin’, ma’am.  It couldn’t be.  It’s all over now.”  She smiled gratefully at Miss Alathea.  “An’ you’re his aunt, ain’t you?  I’d know you for his kin, anywhere.  Why, somehow, you remind me of my lost mother.”

“Thank you, my dear.  You must be very lonely, up here all alone.”

“I am, sometimes,” said the girl, “but I have lots of fun, too.  The woods are full of friends.  Th’ birds an’ squirrels ain’t afraid o’ me.  They seem to think I’m a wild thing, like ’em.”

“It’s true,” said Frank, with an admiring, cheering look at the little country girl.  “Their confidence in her is wonderful.”

The bluegrass girl’s annoyance was increasing.  She had come up to the mountains thinking that, among such crude surroundings, her gowns and the undoubted beauty they adorned, would hold the center of the stage, and by contrast, hold Layson quite enthralled; but here, instead, was a brown-faced country maid in grotesque, homemade costume, attracting most of his attention.  She was conscious that by showing her discomfiture she was not strengthening her own position, but she could not hide it, could not curb her tongue.