Now
there was a lightness in his step and quickness in his every motion.
Had I not known him, I should have seen in the scrupulous part in his
hair a suggestion of the foppish. But I knew him, and while I liked
him best with his old tousled head, and tanned face, and homely hickory
shirt, I felt a certain pride that he had taken so well with the world
and was learning the ways of the town as well as those of the field and
wood. His gloves did seem foolish, for it was a bitter December day
when the blood had best had full swing in the veins, but he held out to
me a hand pinched in a few square inches of yellow kid. The grasp was
just as warm though, and I forgave that. When he threw aside his silly
little overcoat and stood before me, so tall and strong, so clean-cut
and faultless, from the part in his hair to the shine on his boot-tips,
I cried, "Heigh-ho, my fine gentleman!"
Then he blushed. I suspected that it pleased him vastly.
"Do you think it an improvement?" he faltered, standing with his back
to the fireplace and lifting himself to his full height.
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