"I asked you to wait for me, Mrs. Carder," she said.
The old woman looked up from her steaming pan, her countenance full of trouble.
"Now, Rufus don't want you to do anything like this, Miss Melody, and Pete's helpin' me, you see."
Geraldine turned and saw a boy who was carrying a heavy, steaming kettle from the stove to the sink, and she met his eyes fixed upon her. She recognized him at once as the driver of the motor in which she and her host had come from the station. As the chauffeur he had appeared like a boy of ordinary size, but now she saw that his arms were long and his legs short and bowed, and in height he would barely reach her shoulder.
The dwarf had a long, solemn, tanned face and a furtive, sullen eye. Geraldine remembered Rufus Carder's rough tone as he had summoned him at the station. He was perhaps a wretched, lonely creature like herself. She met his look with a smile that, directed toward his master, would have sent Rufus into the seventh heaven of complacence.
"I have met Pete already," she said, kindly. "He drove us up from the station. I'm glad you are helping Mrs. Carder, Pete. She seems to have too much to do."
The boy did not reply, but he appeared unable to remove his eyes from Geraldine's kind look, and careless of where he was going he stumbled against the sink.
"Look out, Pete!" exclaimed his mistress. "What makes you so clumsy? You nearly scalded me. I guess he's tired, too." The old woman sighed. "Everybody picks on Pete. They all find something for him to do."
"Then run away now," said Geraldine, still warming the boy's dull eyes with her entrancing smile, "and let me take your place. I can dry dishes as fast as anybody can wash them."
The dwarf slowly backed away, and disappeared into the woodshed, keeping his gaze to the last on the sunny-haired loveliness which had invaded the ugliness of that low-ceiled kitchen.