But that Saturday morning he realized what the woman was
to be like, when the hem of the velvet skirt no longer hung high above
spindly black legs and the bobbed hair had been allowed to grow and
grow, far below the tiny ears which it now barely covered.
To Caleb who, without knowing it, from sheer sympathy was viewing her
through the untaught eyes of the boy at his feet, she was no longer a
mere slip of a girl-child, dark-eyed, bewildering of mood and pulsingly
alive. Caleb caught his first illuminating glimpse of the woman she
was to be--of the dainty grace and more than usual beauty which was
there in the promise of the years. And he who was fond of insisting to
his sister Sarah, that there was many a boy back in those hills who,
with his chance, might some day achieve greatness, suddenly realized
how long and weary the road would be for just such a one as the
fascinated little figure on the steps, before he could begin to
approach that level which, to a society that Caleb understood, was
typified by this exquisite, elfin figure, Dexter Allison's daughter.
He was no snob--Caleb Hunter--and yet the little girl's bearing at that
moment doubly accented for him the gulf which lay between her and the
hills-boy, by name Steve. For though she did pause to stare at his
white drill trousers and unbelievable man-sized boots with frankly
childish astonishment, the next instant she had recovered herself and
without another glance preceded her father across the grass.
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