Coming out on top of the ridge, Brownie stopped of his own accord, and the girl saw again the figure of a young giant, standing in the level rays of the setting sun, with his great arms outstretched, saying, “I reckon I was built to live in these hills.  I don’t guess you’d better count on me ever bein’ more’n I am.”  Sammy realized suddenly that the question was no longer whether Ollie would be ashamed of her.  It was quite a different question, indeed.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Ollie comes home.

The day that Ollie was expected at the cabin on Dewey Bald, Mr. Lane was busy in the field.

“I don’t reckon you’ll need me at th’ house nohow,” he said with a queer laugh, as he rose from the dinner table; and Sammy, blushing, told him to go on to his work, or Young Matt would get his planting done first.

Jim went out to get his horse from the stable, but before he left, he returned once more to the house.

“What is it, Daddy?  Forget something?” asked Sammy, as her father stood in the doorway.

“Not exactly,” drawled Jim.  “I ain’t got a very good forgetter.  Wish I had.  It’s somethin’ I can’t forget.  Wish I could.”

In a moment the girl’s arms were about his neck, “You dear foolish old Daddy Jim.  I have a bad forgetter, too.  You thought when I began studying with Dad Howitt that my books would make me forget you.  Well, have they?” A tightening of the long arm about her waist was the only answer.  “And now you are making yourself miserable trying to think that Ollie Stewart and his friends will make me forget you; just as if all the folks in the world could ever be to me what you are; you, and Dad, and Uncle Matt, and Aunt Mollie, and Young Matt.  Daddy, I am ashamed of you.  Honest, I am.  Do you think a real genuine lady could ever forget the father who had been so good to her?  Daddy, I am insulted.  You must apologize immediately.”

She pretended to draw away, but the long arm held her fast, while the mountaineer said in a voice that had in it pride and pain, with a world of love, “I know, I know, girl.  But you’ll be a livin’ in the city, when you and Ollie are married, and these old hills will be mighty lonesome with you gone.  You see I couldn’t never leave the old place.  ’Tain’t much, I know, so far as money value goes.  But there’s some things worth a heap more than their money value, I reckon.  If you was only goin’ t’ live where I could ride over once or twice a week to see you, it would be different.”

“Yes, Daddy; but maybe I won’t go after all.  I’m not married, yet, you know.”

Something in her voice or manner caused Jim to hold his daughter at arm’s length, and look full into the brown eyes; “What do you mean, girl?”

Sammy laughed in an uneasy and embarrassed way.  She was not sure that she knew herself all that lay beneath the simple words.  She tried to explain.  “Why, I mean that—­that Ollie and I have both grown up since we promised, and he has been living away out in the big world and going to school besides.  He must have seen many girls since he left me.  He is sure to be changed greatly, and—­ and, maybe he won’t want a backwoods wife.”