and could produce such men as he. Were all men in the bluegrass like
Frank Layson--courteous, considerate, and as strong and active as the
best of mountaineers? If so--what a splendid place for women! She was
sure that men like him were never brutal to their wives and daughters,
sisters, mothers, as the mountaineers too often are; she was certain
that they did not craze themselves with whisky and terrify and beat
their families; she was sure that when one loved a girl the courtship
must be all sweet gentleness and happiness and joy, not like the quick
succession of mad love-making and fierce quarrels which had
characterized the heart-affairs that she had watched, there in the
mountains.

She, herself, had had no love-affairs. Instinctively she had held
herself aloof from the ruck of the young mountain-men, neither she nor
they knew why, unless it was because she owned the valley land and so
was what the mountain folk called rich. Most of them had tried to pay
her court, but none of them, save Joe, had in the least attracted her,
and she had let them know this (strangely) without arousing too much
anger.

Now she had one suitor, only, who was at all persistent--Joe. She had
sometimes thought she loved him. Now she knew, quite certainly, that she
did not, and, in a vague way, was sorry for him, for she was quite
certain of his love for her. It never once occurred to her that she was
rapidly falling in love with the young man by her side. She had not
thought of him as being socially superior: the spirit of independence,
of equality of men, is nowhere stronger, even in this land of
independence and equality, than it is among the mountains of the
Cumberland; but she knew he was most wise. Had not the puzzling symbols
in the spelling-book been, to him, as simple matters? She knew that he