Page:Hopkinson Smith--armchair at the inn.djvu/225

 lot of it there was when it was all combed out, and of so rich a brown, with a thread of gold here and there where the light struck it; and, more than all, her deep sapphire-blue eyes. Oh!—you cannot think how lovely they were; eyes that drank you all in until you were lost in their depths—like a well holding and refreshing you.

“So we dressed her up—leghorn hat, petticoats, tiny slippers on her tiny feet—and they were tiny—even to her shepherdess crook—until she looked as if she had just stepped out of one of Watteau’s canvases.

“And you may be sure she had her innings! The young fellows went wild over her, as well as the older ones—and even some of our own gentry tried to make love to her—so I heard next day. When all was ready she picked out her own partner, as I had promised she should, a straight, well-built, honest-faced young peasant whom she called ‘Henri’—a year or two her senior, and whom I learned was the son of a poor farmer whose land adjoined her father’s, but whose flocks and herds consisted of but one cow and a few pigs. In his pearl-gray short clothes and jacket, slashed sleeves, and low-cut shoes he looked amazingly well, and I did