of a boulder, with a roguish streak of sunshine whipping across her black hair, her sunbonnet hanging between her shoulders, her right hand lifted as if listening, her lips half parted, and a saucy smile dancing in her eyes, no artist in our day and time has ever conceived a lovelier picture than Loorany Parmalee made. To find its counterpart, you will have to hark back to the romantic rascals who laid on the color in old times.
Anyhow, Loorany's beauty was known far beyond the cloud-skirted heights of Tray Mountain. Nacoochee, the Vale of the Evening Star, had heard about it, and was curious, and far away on the banks of the Chattahoochee, in the county of Hall, a young man knew of it, and became "restless in the mind," as Mrs. Pruett would say. This young man's name was Hildreth; Hildreth of Hall, he was called, because there was a Hildreth in Habersham.
Now, it would have been better in the end for Hildreth of Hall if he had never heard of Loorany Parmalee, but small blame should be laid at his door on account of his ignorance; the future was a sealed book to him, as it is to all of us. It was what he knew and
