"She still says so," I remarked, thoughtfully.

"Then it's time she got a little imagination herself!" snapped mycompanion. "David Beasley's the quietest man God has made, but everybodyknows what he IS! There are some rare people in this world that aren'tall TALK; there are some still rarer ones that scarcely ever talk atall--and David Beasley's one of them. I don't know whether it's becausehe can't talk, or if he can and hates to; I only know he doesn't. AndI'm glad of it, and thank the Lord he's put a few like that into thistalky world! David Beasley's chuckle is much better than acres of otherpeople's talk. My Providence! Wouldn't anybody, just to look at him,know that he does much better than talk? He THINKS! The trouble with AnnApperthwaite was that she was too youthful to look at it. She was so full ofnovels and poetry and dreaminess and highfalutin nonsense she couldn'tsee ANYTHING as it really was. She'd study her mirror, and look at such aheroine of romance there that she just couldn't bear to have a fiancewho hadn't any chance of turning out to be the crown-prince of Kenoshain disguise! At the fairly least, to suit HER he'd have had to wear a'well-trimmed Vandyke' and coo sonnets in the gloaming, or read 0n aBalcony to her by a yellow lamp.