Mrs. Guthrie bent her softened and unrecognizable face upon Shattuck, and said that he was "right welcome" and she was glad to see him. Then she turned to the candidate, with an anxiety which was almost pathetic, to hear that younger self praised in the repeated words of a man she had known forty-five years ago.
"Waal, I'll know the ear-marks of the truth whenst I hear it," she prompted his lagging resolve.
"Your name was Madeline Crayshaw," he began. He was gayly fanning himself with his hat.
"Ye could hev fund that out ennywhar," she said, expectantly.
"And your eyes were black," he went on, with an air of gallantry.
"They air yit," she interposed, flashing them at him.
"And for all your eyes were black, your hair was as yellow as gold, a yard long. Could I find that out now by looking at you?"
She shook her head.
"And Len Rhodes said you looked when you danced for all the world 'like a lettuce-bird a-flying.'"
"Who would hev thunk o' hearin' that old foolishness agin?" she cried, her eyes dim with pleasure. "I don't look like a lettuce-bird now; some similar ter a ole Dominicky hen, I reckon, stiddier a lettuce-bird. But that war the word on the tip o' Len Rhodes's tongue, for he never got tired o' talkin' o' yaller hair an' black eyes. I wonder the 'oman he married at las' warn't no better favored," she added, with a sudden hardening of the lines of her features. "Sech a admirer o' beauty ez he war! But he war a admirer o' lan's an' cattle an' bank-stock ez well; an' yer granmam war mighty well off, ef she war little an' lean an' hed no head o' hair at all, ter speak of."