The result was
not encouraging, but it flashed upon him that this was his first attempt
to make good at his job on the farm. He threw off his coat and went at
his work with energy; but the probability of breakfast, so far as it
depended upon the result of his efforts, seemed to be growing more and
more remote.
"Guess ye ain't got the knack of it," said a voice, deep, full, and
mellow, behind him. "That axe ain't no good for choppin', it's a
splittin' axe."
Turning, he saw a girl of about seventeen, with little grace and less
beauty, but strongly and stoutly built, and with a good-natured, if
somewhat stupid and heavy face. Her hair was dun in colour, coarse
in texture, and done up loosely and carelessly in two heavy braids,
arranged about her head in such a manner as to permit stray wisps of
hair to escape about her face and neck. She was dressed in a loose pink
wrapper, all too plainly of home manufacture, gathered in at the
waist, and successfully obliterating any lines that might indicate
the existence of any grace of form, and sadly spotted and stained with
grease and dirt. Her red stout arms ended in thick and redder hands,
decked with an array of black-rimmed nails. At his first glance,
sweeping her "tout ensemble," Cameron was conscious of a feeling of
repulsion, but in a moment this feeling passed and he was surprised to
find himself looking into two eyes of surprising loveliness, dark blue,
well shaped, and of such liquid depths as to suggest pools of water
under forest trees.
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