"Fair and lovely as thou art,
Thou hast stown my very heart;
I can die—but cannot part,
My bonnie dearie."
And even as she listened to the last line, Morton had discovered that the spring-house door was ajar, and turned, shading his eyes, to see if perchance Patty might not be within. He saw her and reached out his hand, greeting her warmly; but his eyes yet unaccustomed to the imperfect light did not see how full of blushes was her face—for she feared that he might guess all that she had just been dreaming. But she was resolved at any rate to show him more kindness than she would have shown had it not been for the displeasure which she supposed her father had manifested. And so she covered the last crock and came and stood by him at the door of the spring-house, and he talked right on in the tender strain of his song. And she did not protest, but answered back timidly and almost as warmly.
And that is how little negro Bob at last found Patty at the spring-house and found Morton with her. "Law's sake! Miss Patty, done look for ye mos' every whah. Yer paw wants ye." And with that Bob rolled the whites of his eyes up, parted his black lips into a broad white grin, and looked at Morton knowingly.
CHAPTER XI.
THE VOICE IN THE WILDERNESS.
"Ha! ha! good morning, Morton!" said the Captain. "You've been keeping Patty down at the spring-house when she should have been at the loom by this time. In my time young men and women didn't waste their mornings. Nights and Sundays are good enough for visiting. Now, see here, Patty, there's one of them plagued Methodist preachers brought into the settlement by Wheeler. These circuit riders are worse than third day fever 'n' ager. They go against dancing and artificials and singing songs and reading novels and all other amusements. They give people the jerks wherever they go. The devil's in 'em. Now I want you to go to work and get up a dance to-night, and ask all you can get along with. Nothing'll make the preacher so mad as to dance right under his nose; and we'll keep a good many people away who might get the jerks, or fall down with the power and break their necks, maybe."
Patty was always ready to dance, and she only said: "If Morton will help me send the invitations."
"I'll do that," said Morton, and then he told of the discomfiture he had wrought in a Methodist meeting while he was gone. And he had the satisfaction of seeing that the narrative greatly pleased Captain Lumsden.
"We'll have to send Wheeler afloat sometime, eh, Mort?" said the Captain, chuckling interrogatively. Morton did not like this proposition, for, notwithstanding theological, differences about election, Mrs. Wheeler was a fast friend of his mother. He evaded an answer by hastening to consult with Patty and her mother concerning the guests.
Those who got "invites" danced cotillions and reels nearly all night. Morton danced with Patty to his heart's content, and in the happiness of Morton's assured love and of a truce in her father's interruptions she was a queen indeed. She wore the antique earrings that were an heir-loom in her mother's family, and a showy breast-pin which her father had bought her. These and her new dress of English calico made her the envy of all the others. Pretty Betty Harsha was led out by some one at almost every dance, but she would have given all of these for one dance with Morton Goodwin.