This question was on her lips and in her eyes: "Will he come alone? Oh, will he come alone?"
Was it her father she was watching for, and did she wish him to come alone? If she expected that, why were those scarlet poppies burning in the blackness of her hair? Why had she put on that chintz dress with tufts of wild flowers glowing on a maroon ground?—all cheap in themselves, but giving richness of color to match that of her person. Her father had gone to bed supperless one night because the money for that knot of red ribbon on her bosom had been paid to a pedlar who cajoled her into the purchase.
Evidently some one besides the toiling old man was expected. Judith never in her life had waited so anxiously for him. There was a table set out in the room she had left, on which a white cloth was spread; a glass dish of blackberries stood on this table, and by it a pitcher-full of milk, mantled temptingly with cream.
Does any one suppose that Judith had arranged all this for the father whom she had sent supperless to bed only a few days before, because of her longing for the ribbon that flamed on her bosom?
No, no; Richard Storms had made good use of his opportunities. Riding his blood-horse, or walking leisurely, he had mounted that hill almost every day since his second visit to the old house.
I have said that a great change had taken place in Judith's person. Indeed, there was something in her face that startled you. Until a few months since her deepest feelings had been aroused by some sensational romance; but now all the poetry, all the imagination and rude force of her nature were concentrated in a first grand passion. Females like Judith, left to stray into life untaught and unchecked—through the fervor of youth—inspired by ideas that spring out of their own boundless ignorance, sometimes startle one with a sudden development of character.
As a tropical sun pours its warmth into the bosom of an orange tree, ripening its fruit before the blossoms fall, first love had awakened the strong, even reckless nature of this girl, and inspired all the latent elements of a character formed like the garden in which we first saw her, where fruit, weeds, and flowers struggled for life together. Without method or culture, these elements concentrated to mar or brighten her future life.
For a while after that second visit of Storms, Judith had held her independence bravely. When the young man came, she was full of quaint devices for his entertainment, bantering him all the time with good-natured audacity, which he liked. She took long rambles with him down the hillside, rather proud that the neighbors should witness her conquest, but without a fear, or even thought, of the scandal it might occasion.
Sometimes they sat hours together under the orchard-trees, where she would weave daisy-chains or impatiently tear up the grass around her as he became tender or tantalizing in his speech.
For a time her voice—a deep, rich contralto—filled the whole house as it went ringing to and fro, like the joyous out-gush of a mocking-bird, for in that way she gave expression to the pride and glory that possessed her.