She turned without warning, and walking to the bank of the creek, which at this point was raised several feet above the water, leaned over and peered down into the pool below. Could Eve have been more artless? She was looking at her reflection in the mirror of the stream!
I picked up her bonnet by one of the strings, then went and stood beside her. A compliment arose unbidden to my lips, but I stifled it. It would not have been fair.
"I mus' go," she said, straightening up, and twisting a hanging curl near her forehead back beneath her hair.
"Aren't you—"
I started to ask if she wasn't afraid, and if I mightn't go with her, but remembered in time.
"—and your granny very lonely?" I finished, lamely, but she did not appear to notice it.
"La! No! Th' Tollerses 's jis' t'other side o' th' ridge, 'n' they've got a pas'l o' kids. No time to git lonesome!"
My spirit writhed. Such language as this—from her!
She held out a hand for the bonnet.
I brought it forward slowly, still holding it by the string. Her hand rested against mine for an instant as she took it. At this juncture I made a—to me—significant discovery. Her nails were pared and clean! It seemed paradoxical, but it was true. I did not attempt to account for the phenomenon then, but I did later, with no results whatever.