“The wrong person?” She echoed him falteringly.
“Yes,” he said, “the wrong person.” He looked fondly at the slim shape beside him. Hilda’s head was now turned away; he got only the outline of one thin, brown cheek; he couldn’t see the look that was in the big, black, long-lashed eyes—nor that Hilda had turned them away from him because she herself was afraid that look was in them. “You’re only a little girl—as yet,” he repeated it, as though by repetition he meant to make it true. “And still we’re bound to remember that there’ll be plenty of young fellers over there to notice you—and for you to notice. That’s what I’m trying to speak to you about, honey—and I ain’t finding it easy.”
A quick glance from Hilda; she hated to trouble Uncle Hank this way. She tried to help him out with:
“Fayte’s not going to be there—at first, anyhow. His father said he was sending him into Old Mexico—on business—he might not be back for nearly a year.”
Uncle Hank put that by with a little wave of the hand. Fayte’s connection with the rustlers was understood by every man on the Sorrows; his father’s lame explanation that the boy had been deceived by the gang was accepted silently. This sending him off to Mexico till the talk blew over was the best Marchbanks could do.
“I ain’t thinking about that feller,” Uncle Hank said. “You’d not make a friend of him—though in front of his folks you’d have to treat him nice. I trust you to handle that. You’re young, Pettie, but you’ve got good judgment. Just take what I’m saying as mostly a warning to any young person going out among strangers. Your way is paid over there. I wouldn’t take nothing for you as a gift from Marchbanks, though he wanted me to. I intended you should be free and independent, like your father’s daughter ought to be. Anything you don’t like—you can just pick up and come home.”
Hilda’s hand went instinctively to her pocket. Uncle Hank talked a good deal like the letter there.
“Oh, well,” she said, half bitterly, “if I’m such a child, Aunt Val must be right; you won’t need to talk to me about—about these things for years yet.”
Hank could not remember when Hilda had ever spoken to him like that. He couldn’t know that she was answering Pearse’s letter, making her little stand of maiden dignity with Pearse.
“Think so?” he asked gently. “I’m afraid you’re mistaken, Pettie. You’ll find yourself a grown-up young lady all of a sudden—and then maybe some of the things you have allowed to hang about will make trouble.”