A low laugh rippled from the girl’s red lips. Amanda’s ears tingled so she did not understand the exchange of light talk. The fear and jealousy in her heart dulled her senses to all save them, but she laughed, said good-bye, and hid her feelings as she and Isabel went down the road to the Reist farmhouse.
“Amanda,” the other girl said effusively, “what a fine young man! Is he your beau?”
“No. Certainly not! I have no beau. I’ve known Martin Landis ever since I was born, almost. He lives down the road a piece. He’s a nice chap.”
“Splendid! Fine! Such eyes, such wonderfully expressive gray eyes I have never seen. And he has such a strong face. Of course, his clothes are a bit shabby. He’d be great if he fixed up.”
“Yes,” Amanda agreed mechanically. She was ill-pleased with the dissection of her knight.
Mrs. Reist, with true rural, Pennsylvania Dutch hospitality, invited Isabel to have supper with them, an invitation readily accepted. At the close of the meal Isabel said suddenly to Mrs. Reist, “How would you like to have me board with you for a few weeks--a month, probably?”
“Why, I don’t know. All right, I guess, if Millie, here, don’t think it makes too much work. Poor Millie’s got the worst of all the work to do. I ain’t so strong, and there’s much always to do. Of course, Amanda helps, but none of us do as much as Millie.”
“But me, don’t I get paid for it, and paid good?” asked the hired girl, sending a loving glance at Mrs. Reist. “Far as I go it’s all right to have Isabel come for a while. Mebbe she can help, too, sometimes with the work.”
“I wouldn’t be much help, I’m afraid. I never peeled a potato in my life.”
Millie looked at the girl with slightly concealed disfavor. “Why, that’s a funny way, now, to bring up a girl! I guess it’s time you learn such things once! You dare come, and I’ll show you how to do a little work. But why do you want to board when your folks live just in Lancaster?”