Easter did not reappear until the mountaineer
was gone.
There were othcr hopeful signs. Whenever Clayton spoke of his
friends, she always listened eagerly, and asked innumerable
questions about them. If his attention was caught by any queer
custom or phrase of the mountain dialect, she was quick to ask in
return how he would say the same thing, and what the custom was
in the settlemints." She even made feeble attempts to model her
own speech after his.
In a conscious glow that he imagined was philanthropy, Clayton
began his task of elevation. She was not so ignorant as he had
supposed. Apparently she had been taught by somebody, but when
asked by whom, she hesitated answering; and he had taken it for
granted that what she knew she had puzzled out alone. He was
astonished by her quickness, her docility, and the passionate
energy with which she worked. Her instant obedience to every
suggestion, her trust in every word he uttered, made him acutely
and at times uncomfortably conscious of his responsibility. At the
same time there was in the task something of the pleasure that a
young sculptor feels when, for the first time, the clay begins to
yield obedience to his fingers, and something of the delight that
must have thrilled Pygmalion when he saw his statue tremulous
with conscious life.
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