The girl sat as if stunned, looking into the fire with vague distended eyes. She lifted them once and gazed at Mrs. Jessup, as if she hardly understood.
“Look-a-hyar, Lethe, what sorter face air that ye hev got onter ye?” cried Mrs. Sayles. “Ye better not set yer features that-a-way. I hev hearn folks call sech looks ‘the dead-face,’ an’ when ye wear the ‘dead-face’ it air a sign ye air boun’ fur the grave.”
“Waal, that’s whar we all air boun’ fur,” moralized old man Sayles.
“Quit it!” his wife admonished the girl, who passed her hand over her face as if seeking to obliterate the obnoxious expression. “Ye go right up-steers ter bed. I’m goin’ ter gin ye some yerb tea.”
She took down a small bag, turning from it some dried leaves into her hand, and looked at them mysteriously, as if she were about to conjure with them.
The girl rose obediently, and went up the rude, uncovered stairs to the roof-room. After an interval Mrs. Jessup observed the babbling baby pointing upward. Among the shadows half-way up the flight Alethea was sitting on a step, looking down vacantly at them. But upon their sudden outcry she seemed to rouse herself, rose, and disappeared above.
XIX.
Gwinnan, upon recovering consciousness, showed no retrospective interest in the scene at the depot. He remarked imperatively to the physician whom he found in attendance that it was necessary for him to leave during the afternoon,—in fact, as soon as possible,—to hold court in a distant county. He added, for the instruction of the doctor, that the clerk could open court, and had no doubt done so on Monday and Tuesday, and would be obliged to repeat this on Wednesday, without the presence of the presiding judge, but Thursday was the last day for which the statute had provided the alternative. He evidently expected that if the physician had any flimsy objections he would withdraw them before this grave necessity, understanding that this was no time for the indulgence of professional whimseys.