We have said that the crone, already nearly deaf with age, did not hear the guests. Kate watched her with a puzzled look, for a while, and then going close up to her, she put her light-gloved hand on the old woman’s shoulder, and said, in her musical voice, but with something of astonishment—
“What are you doing, aunty? Have you lost your wits?”
The dame, thus apostrophized, turned, and, after disdainfully regarding her visitors as if scorning their ignorance, answered tartly, turning to her work,
“Chile, I’se paperin’ de wall. Dis makes a fus-rate lion’s claw. Don’t yer see? Dar!”
And, giving a finishing touch to her work, she stepped back admiringly, as a Landseer may be supposed to do, when he has completed a masterpiece.
The first instinct of Kate was to laugh heartily. But regard for the feelings of her poor old nurse, who would have been mortified inexpressibly, induced her to restrain herself, though her eyes literally ran over with suppressed glee, as she glanced at her companion, who, in turn, could scarcely keep his merriment under control. The visit, after a few kind inquiries from Kate, terminated by our heroine slipping a dollar into the hands of the crone, a gratuity which Major Gordon secretly doubled as the fair girl rode off ahead.
When the cabin was fairly out of hearing, however, the woods rung with the silvery laughter of Kate. At last, her merriment subsided, and she said—
“It’s hardly fair to laugh at poor old Chloe. She only does what all the world’s doing. Her poke-berry juice and dog’s paw are but an humbler way of aping the luxuries of the great.”
Major Gordon made no answer, but said to himself— “Her heart is right, even where her education is wrong.”