"You see,
Mr. Vandemark, my days of honest industry are of very recent date. Thank
you for the suggestion, sir."
I got up to leave. Rowena's father was pulling off his boots, which
with us then, was the signal that he was going to bed. If I stayed after
that alone with Rowena, it was a sign that we were to "sit up"--and that
was courtship. I was slowly getting it through my wool that it looked as
if Buckner Gowdy and Rowena were going to sit up, when I heard her
giving me back my good evening, and at the same time, behind his back,
motioning me to my chair, and shaking her head. And while I was backing
and filling, the door' opened and a woman appeared on the step.
"Ah, Mrs. Mobley," said Buck, "anything for me?"
She was very nicely dressed for a woman busy about her own home, but the
thing that I remembered was her pallor. Her hair was light brown and
curled about her forehead, and her eyes were very blue, like china. And
there was a quiver in her like that which you see in the little
quaking-asps in the slews--something pitiful, and sort of forsaken. Her
face was not so fresh as it had been a few years before, and on her
cheeks were little red spots, like those you see in the cheeks of people
with consumption--or a pot of face-paint. She was tall and
strong-looking, and somewhat portly, and quite masterful in her ways as
a general rule; but that night she seemed to be in a sort of pleading
mood, not a bit like herself when dealing with ordinary people.
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