"Fer ther Lord's sake," exclaimed the boy. "Thet's ther fust time I
ever seed ye in petticoats. Looks like ye must hev on a half score of
'em."
"Like es not hit's ther last time ye'll ever see hit, too," retorted
Alexander hotly while her cheeks flamed. "Some day I mout hev ter go
down below ter some big town on business. A woman's got ter w'ar these
fool things thar, an' I was practising so's I could larn ter walk with
'em flappin' round my legs."
Yet she walked, for all the alleged difficulty, with an untrameled and
regal ease. With a sweep of hauteur she left the grinning boy and when
she returned a few minutes later she was breeched and booted as usual.
Sometimes, in these days, she went to a crest from which the view
reached off for leagues over the valley and beyond that over ridge upon
ridge of hilltops. There she thought of many things and was very
lonely. She could not have worded it but, deep in her heart, she felt
the outcry of the Spring voice: "Make me anything but neuter when the
sap begins to stir."
But how could this be any love-impulse in Alexander? Love, she had
always heard, must fix itself upon some one endearing object and lay
its glamor over definite features.
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