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Moreover, I was more than curious to see what particular kind of a fledgling could be born to these two parent birds–one so hard and unsympathetic and the other so kind and simple. Jim, I remembered, had always spoken enthusiastically of Ruby, but then Jim always spilled over the edges whenever he spoke of the things he loved, whether they were dogs, trees, flowers, or brilliant young maidens.

At nine o’clock that night my ear caught the sound of wheels; then came Jim’s “Whoa! Bess,” and the mother threw wide the door and caught her daughter in her arms.

“Oh, mother!” the girl cried, “wasn’t it good I could come?” and she kissed her again. Then she turned to me–I had followed out in the starlight–“Uncle Jim sent me word you were here, and I was so glad. I’ve always wanted to see somebody paint, and Uncle Jim says he’s sure you will let me go sketching with you. I wasn’t coming home with the other girls until I got his letter and knew that you were here.”

She said this frankly and simply, without the slightest embarrassment, and without a trace of any dialect in her speech. Jim evidently had not exaggerated her attainments. She had, too, unconsciously to herself, solved one of the mysteries that surrounded me. If Jim was her uncle it must be on her mother’s side; it certainly could not be on Marvin’s.

“And I’m glad, too,” I replied. “Of course you shall go, and Jim tells me also that you are as good a woodsman as he is. And so Jim’s your uncle, is he? He never told me that.”

“Oh, no,” she answered quickly, with a little deprecatory air. “He isn’t my real uncle. He’s just Jim, but I’ve always called him Uncle Jim ever since I was a little girl. And I love him dearly; don’t I, Uncle Jim?” and she turned toward him as he entered the door carrying her bundle, followed by her father with the kerosene lamp, Marvin having brought it out to help Jim unload the buck-board.

“That’s what ye allus says, baby-girl,” answered Jim, “so I got to believe it. And if I didn’t, there wouldn’t be no use o’ livin’–not a mite.” There was a vibrating tenderness in the man’s voice, and an indescribable pathos in its tone, as he spoke, that caused me instinctively to turn my head and look into his face.

The light shone full upon it–so full and direct that there were no shadows anywhere. Whether it was because of the lamp’s direct rays or because of his long ride in the crisp November air, I could not decide, but certain it was that Jim’s face was without a wrinkle, and that he looked twenty years younger. Even the hard, drawn lines about his mouth and nose had disappeared.

With the light of the lamp came another revelation. While the girl’s cheap woollen dress and jacket, of a pattern sold in the country stores, showed her to be the product of Marvin’s home and the recipient of his scanty bounty, her trim, well-rounded figure, soft, glossy hair–now that her hat was off–and small hands and feet, classed her as one of far gentler birth. There was, too, as she passed in and out of the room helping her mother with the supper-table, a certain grace and dignity, especially in the way in which she bent her head on one side to listen, a gesture often seen in a drawing-room, but never, in my experience, in a cabin. What astonished me most, however, were her hands–her exquisitely modelled hands, still ruddy from the fresh night air, but so wonderfully curved and dimpled. And then, too, the perfect graciousness and simplicity of her manner and its absolute freedom from coquetry or self-consciousness. Her mother was right–I would not soon forget her. And yet, by what freak of Nature, I found myself continually repeating, had this flower been made to bloom on this soil? Through what ancestor’s veins had this blood trickled, and through what channels had it reached these humble occupants of a forest home?