“Well, well,” said Martin, “how’s my darling?” He kissed her with equal vigor, his hat knocked at an angle upon his head.
“This is ‘Tinker,’” he said, smiling at Jeannette. “Everybody calls her ‘Tinker,’ but her real name’s ‘Elizabeth.’ Where’s your brother, Tinker?”
An answering clatter and rush came from an interior region, and a small boy flung himself upon the man.
“And this is Joe, Janny. He has a nickname, too; sometimes we call him ‘Josephus,’—don’t we, old blunderbuss?”
There was another vigorous embrace.
The two children regarded Jeannette with shy but friendly glances. The little girl was about nine, the boy two or three years younger. Tinker was brown of skin and brown of eye; her hair was short and tawny and swept off her face in an old-fashioned way, held back by an encircling comb that reached from one temple to the other. She was freckled and had an alert, engaging expression, while her brown eyes were sharp as shoe buttons, and twinkled between long tawny eyelashes. Simply, she approached Jeannette and held up her brown arms as she offered her lips. The boy was diminutive and wiry with furtive glance and grinning mouth that displayed a gaping hole left by two missing front teeth. He hung his head as he held out his small hand, but as Jeannette took it, he darted a quick upward look into her face and gave her a friendly elfish grin.
Jeannette was moved, captivated at once by the charm of both.
“They’re darlings!” came involuntarily from her, and then there was the sound of descending feet upon the stairs and Jeannette straightened herself from the crouching position in which she had greeted the children to face their mother.
“A pretty woman—and sweet—younger than I expected,” went Jeannette’s thoughts; “nothing to fear here.”
Ruthie was in truth a pretty woman, pretty without being either beautiful or handsome. Her expression was bright, alert, eager, her manner friendly and effusive. She resembled her small son.