From the doll she turned to an amazing jumping-jack, the next treasure taken from the packages.  She pulled the toy’s animating strings and watched its antics with delight.  “Mos’ as lively as a Kentucky Colonel climbin’ a tree,” said she, and laughed roguishly at the horseman.  “Oh, I heard of it; I heard of it.”

The Colonel tried in vain to protest, Madge’s laughter kept up merrily, as she took an old-fashioned carpet-sack from quite the biggest of the bundles and began to pack her purchases in it, until the Colonel and Miss Alathea left the room, gaily protesting at her ridicule.

Instantly all of the signs of high elation vanished from the girl’s face.  She drooped.  Left alone, it quickly became plain that her recent animation had been forced, unreal.  “Well I guess I’d better not open up th’ other bundles,” she said listlessly.  “I’ll pack ’em as they be.  It’s time I started too.  I’m goin’ back to the mountings.”  Softly she hummed the air the darkies had been singing when she came into the room.

  “Weep no more, my lady, oh, weep no more to-day,
  I will sing one song of my old Kentucky home,
  Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!”

There was infinite pathos in her half-unconscious rendition of the plaintive, darkey melody.  To the mountain girl the moment was full of sadness.  She had come down from her mountains to save the man she loved from the assassin’s bullet and had saved him, not from that alone, but from a crushing blow to hope and fortune.  Her work was done.  All that now was left to her was to go back to her little cabin, hiding the secret of her love for him in her sore heart, enshrining, there, the memory of every minute she had ever passed with him as holy memories to comfort her in days to come.  Melancholy thoughts pressed on her hard.

Frank entered.

He stopped short in the doorway, looking with amazement at her work of packing for departure.

“Why, Madge!” said he.  “What does this mean?  Packing up!  Surely you’re not going away!” There was a thrill of real distress in his pleasant, vibrant voice which comforted her.

“Yes, I’m going back to th’ mountings.  I was ... goin’ afore, but I couldn’t miss that hoss-race.”

“Madge,” he cried impulsively, “you must not and you shall not go.  I cannot bear to think of you wasting your life in the lonely mountains.  Madge, your land will make you rich, and with your brightness you could study and learn.  Education will make you an ornament to any society.”

She shook her head.  “As fur as I can see,” said she, “society ain’t what it is cracked up to be.  I don’t seem to have no hankerin’ after it.  Oh, o’ course, I’d like to have all this softness an’ pootiness around me, always; I’d like to go out in th’ world an’ see th’ wonders as I’ve heard of; but I don’t think that ‘u’d satisfy me.  I’d still be hankerin’ an’ thirstin’ arter somethin’ that I couldn’t have.  There’s been a feelin’ in my heart, ever sence I come here, that’ll take th’ air o’ th’ mountings to cl’ar away.  Like enough, up there among th’ wild things that love me, amongst th’ rocks an’ hills, I’ll find th’ rest an’ peace I ain’t had since I come away.”