Finally Cynthia came out from the midst of them and stood leaning against one of the large pillars which supported the roof of the amphitheatre, still gazing about the half-deserted building, with the smouldering fires of her slumberous eyes newly kindled.
To other eyes and ears it might not have seemed a scene of tumultuous metropolitan life, with the murmuring trees close at hand dappling the floor with sycamore shadows, the fields of Indian corn across the road, the exuberant rush of the stream down the slope just beyond, the few hundred spectators who had intently watched the events of the day; but to Cynthia Hollis the excitement of the crowd and movement and noise could no further go.
By the natural force of gravitation Jacob Brice presently was walking slowly and apparently aimlessly around to where she was standing. He said nothing, however, when he was beside her, and she seemed entirely unconscious of his presence. Her yellow dress was as stiff as a board, and as clean as her strong, young arms could make it; at her throat were the shining black beads; on her head she wore a limp, yellow calico sunbonnet, which hung down over her eyes, and almost obscured her countenance. To this article she perhaps owed the singular purity and transparency of her complexion, as much as to the mountain air, and the chiefly vegetable fare of her father's table. She wore it constantly, although it operated almost as a mask, rendering her more easily recognizable to their few neighbors by her flaring attire than by her features, and obstructing from her own view all surrounding scenery, so that she could hardly see the cow, which so much of her time she was slowly poking after.
She spoke unexpectedly, and without any other symptom that she knew of the young hunter's proximity. "I never thought, Jacob, ez how ye would hev come down hyar, all the way from the mountings, to ride agin my dad, an' beat him out'n that thar saddle an' bridle."
"Ye won't hev nothin' ter say ter me," retorted Jacob sourly.
A long silence ensued.
Then he resumed didactically, but with some irrelevancy, "I tole ye t'other day ez how ye war old enough ter be a-studyin' 'bout gittin' married."
"They don't think nothin' of ye ter our house, Jacob. Dad 's always a-jowin' at ye." Cynthia's candor certainly could not be called in question.
The young hunter replied with some natural irritation: "He hed better not let me hear him, ef he wants to keep whole bones inside his skin. He better not tell me, nuther."
"He don't keer enough 'bout ye, Jacob, ter tell ye. He don't think nothin' of ye."