“If so I have not had the pleasure of seeing them,” said Jack, gallantly.
Quite naturally, this confused the girl still more, and Frank hastened to crack a joke and tell a bit of a story to turn attention from her.
Merry saw that she was really ladylike and refined, for all of her honest father’s good-natured coarseness, and her position had distressed her not a little.
Hans tried to be very attentive to Miss Abigail, but she repulsed him, so that he was very crestfallen after that, not a little to the amusement of the others.
The breakfast progressed merrily.
While it was going on a horseman came dashing up to the house, walked up to the dining-room window, leaned on the sill, and looked in.
“Howdy, Rodney,” he said, in a familiar manner.
Then he lifted the broad-brimmed hat from his dark curls and bowed to Sadie. After that he held the hat under his arm while he stood by the window.
He was a handsome fellow in his way, having a drooping black mustache and an imperial, while his dark eyes were keen and piercing. There was about his face a devil-may-care look, as if he feared nothing that walked on the face of the earth.
He was puffing carelessly at a Spanish cigarette, held by his full red lips, which showed beneath the mustache.