She stood trembling, her hand pressed to her beating heart, her head whirling. And then, he never forgot it, of her own accord she laid her other hand on his breast.
'I always believed ye war good—good—good!'
And the wild winds whirled around the Great Smoky, and the world was given over to the clouds and the night, and the rain fell, and the drops splashed with a dreary sound down from the eaves of the house.
They did not hear. How little they heeded. Within, all the atmosphere was suffused by that wonderful irradiation of love, and happiness, and hope that was confidence. The fire might flare if it listed. The shadows might flicker if they would. It seemed to them at the moment each would never see aught, care for aught, save what was expressed in the other's eyes.
The kitten had waxed riotous in the unprecedented opportunities of the reel, still lying with all its tangled yellow yarn upon the floor. As it sprang tigerishly in the air and fell, fixing its predatory claws in another cut, Dorinda looked down with a startled air.
'Granny'll be axin' mighty p'inted how that thar spun-truck kem ter be twisted so,' she said, crestfallen and prescient. 'It looks like a hurrah's nest.'
'Tell her ez how 'twar the cat,' said Rick.
Dorinda shook her head dubiously.
'The cat couldn't hev got it ef the reel hedn't been flunged on the floor.'
'Let's wind it inter balls, then,' suggested Rick, quick at expedients. 'She'll never know it war tangled. I'll hold it fur ye.'