"It is certainly a great mystery," he acknowledged. "I have heard of elderly women showing their eccentricity in this way, but young girls!"
"And such beautiful girls! Do you not think them beautiful?" she asked.
He started and looked at the woman more closely. There was a tone in her voice when she put this question that for the first time made him think that she was less simple than her manner would seem to indicate.
"What is your name?" he asked her abruptly.
"Doris, sir."
"And what is it you want of me?"
"Oh, sir, I thought I told you; to talk to the young ladies and show them how wicked it is to slight the good gifts which the Lord has bestowed upon them. They may listen to you, sir; seeing that you are from out of town and have the ways of the big city about you."
She was very humble now and had dropped her eyes in some confusion at his altered manner, so that she did not see how keenly his glance rested upon her nervous nostril, weak mouth, and obstinate chin. But she evidently felt his sudden distrust, for her hands clutched each other in embarrassment and she no longer spoke with the assurance with which she had commenced the conversation.
"I like the young ladies," she now explained, "and it is for their own good I want them to do differently."
"Have they never been talked to on the subject? Have not their friends or relatives tried to make them break their seclusion?"