“Looked to me as though he needed kicking, all right,” the young man cheerfully assented, and something in the set of his jaw and the swing of his athletic shoulders hinted that Jack Pepper would do well to avoid his immediate neighborhood.
“Well, never mind him now. He isn’t worth it,” pursued her old friend. “Don’t you want to hear all the news from home? About the girls—and dear old Uncle Si? And your little ‘wild orphan?’ You know, I’m an orphan myself, Stella.”
“But you’re grown up,” she returned, not looking at him.
“So has the fawn grown up—and taken to the woods,” laughed the young man. “Come, Stella, I’ve brought you a message. Guess who it’s from. No, not Cynthia this time; not even the old Doctor. I’ve brought you a message from—Miss Sophia!”
He paused to observe the effect of his words, in the soft, black eyes that seemed to widen and deepen gloriously under his steady gaze.
“Yes, Miss Sophia isn’t so young as she was—and there’s something in her, after all, that’s stronger than prejudice and pride. It must have been there always, buried so deep down that nobody ever found it out. She simply can’t hold out any longer, all alone so. She wouldn’t write, dear, because she couldn’t; she sent me all this long way to find you, and tell you that she wants you to come home. Stella, will you come?”
“Miss Sophia wants me,” breathed Yellow Star. It seemed impossible—unbelievable. In these few, short years, many people had wanted her, or seemed to want her; but Miss Sophia!
For a full minute neither spoke. In the silence, the magical Dakota sunset blossomed rosy-red above the pair, who stood, as it were, cut off from all human companionship, a burned-out world under their feet, their heads in a paradise of color and ecstasy.
“And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meets in her aspect and her eyes!”