A JOURNEY TO NATURE 



hopper integuments like a columbine, for they 

 were, after all, only an improvisation, and she came 

 out in a baby waist of muslin with short sleeves, 

 and fluttered a little guidon of ribbon in her rich 

 molasses-coloured hair, that made her look, upon 

 my word, like one of those late morning-glories 

 on Gabe s porch. 



I could not help thinking as I watched her pre 

 side at that tea-table that was what she called it 

 with an innate and facile self-possession, and 

 saw with what unconscious chivalry the two men 

 treated her, how easily she would effect the trans 

 formation to a fine lady when some well-to-do 

 fellow pulled her up by the roots from her furrow 

 and planted her in his conservatory. I had seen 

 this marvellous plasticity of the uncut American 

 diamond in Paris and in London. How quick 

 she would cease to say &quot; wrench &quot; and &quot; Pop &quot; and 

 take to saying, &quot; Bless my soul, governor.&quot; Not 

 a suspicion of the furrow in two years, not even 

 the freckles. If you destroy that possibility, you 

 nip the American progress in the bud. 



Of course she was not of as fine a mettle as 

 Griselle ; I hope I have made it tolerably clear 

 before this, that few girls could be. But there was 

 about her a certain honest, easy, transparent dig 

 nity, with contentment that refreshed. She was 

 not ashamed of potatoes. That fact wrung from 

 me a silent tribute before I knew it. She showed 

 us her cottage piano and the inevitable sewing- 

 machine in the little parlour, not as one shows 

 furniture, but as one shows an acquirement, for 



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