“Here, Wowkle, you can have that to fix up for the weddin’.”
Wowkle’s eyes glowed with appreciation.
“Huh!” she ejaculated, and proceeded to wind the ribbon about the beads around her neck.
Turning once more to the bureau, the Girl took out a small parcel done up in tissue paper and began to unwrap it.
“I’m goin’ to put on them, if I can git ’em on,” she said, displaying a pair of white satin slippers. The next instant she had plumped herself down upon the floor and was trying to encase her feet in a pair of slippers which were much too small for them. “Remember what fun I made o’ you when you took up with Billy Jackrabbit?” suddenly she asked with a happy little smile. “What for? sez I. Well, p’r’aps you was right. P’r’aps it’s nice to have someone you really care for—who belongs to you. P’r’aps they ain’t so much in the saloon business for a woman after all, and you don’t know what livin’ really is until—” She stopped abruptly and threw upon the floor the slipper that refused to give to her foot. “Oh, Wowkle,” she went on, taking up the other slipper, “it’s nice to have someone you can talk to, someone you can turn your heart inside out to.”
At last she had succeeded in getting into one slipper and, rising, tried to stand in it; but it hurt her so frightfully that she immediately sank down upon the floor and proceeded to pat and rub and coddle her foot to ease the pain. It was while she was thus engaged that a knock came upon her cabin door.
“Oh, Lord, here he is!” she cried, panic-stricken, and began to drag herself hurriedly across the room with the intention of concealing herself behind the curtain at the foot of the bed; while Wowkle, with unusual celerity, made for the fireplace, where she stood with her back to the door, gazing into the fire.
The Girl had only gotten half-way across the room, however, when a voice assailed her ears.
“Miss, Miss, kin I—” came in low, subdued tones.
“What? The Sidney Duck?” she cried, turning and seeing his head poked through the window.