Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/141

 shape. If they are worth anything, if they have any real manliness, they come out the better for being taken in hand by a woman of the world. If they are worth nothing, the world is better rid of them."

Miss Herrick looked at the white-haired mountain woman, meditative in the firelight, and told herself that Nancy Willis, who could neither read nor write, was more fortunate than many a rich and worldly mother of her acquaintance. She had her fair, clean-souled boy buried safe among the mountains, living the free outdoor life of a young faun. It was a far cry from New York to these Virginia peaks. Surely even Dolorita's malignant influence could not blast him here. She answered the mountaineer's question as fully as possible.

"Yes, I know her," she said, in a matter-of-fact tone. "I suppose I may say that I know her, for I have often interviewed her in my professional capacity,—that is, she has told me things she wanted to have me put in the paper," added Miss Herrick, correctively, altering her phrase to the comprehension of her hearer. "She is a dancer," she