Joy leaped into his eyes as he dropped his whip and lifted his hat; something more than surprise lighted hers as she let her suds fall and spill over the stone step. Then, stammering a welcome, she surrendered her hands to the glad grasp of the colonel's son.
"My! it's good to see you!" he cried, looking at her with the old frankness. He stepped back a little to measure her from top to toe. "And haven't you shot up!"
"Like a ragweed," she laughed, taking him into the kitchen, where she brought him a chair from the sitting-room.
"You're a full-fledged housekeeper, too," he declared. "How do you like the change from herding?"
"Oh, I haven't herded much for a long while," she replied proudly, as she refilled her tub from a barrel in the corner that had been drawn by the biggest brother; "I helped mother in the house all last summer." She grew sober suddenly, and the colonel's son hastened to change the subject.
"You're looking awfully well," he assured her.
"I've worn off some of my tan," she explained.
"Well, that's partly it," he said, and his glance was boyishly eloquent.
She fell to rubbing again, and he watched her admiringly, noticing how trim was her black dress, and how spotless were the lace at her throat and the ribbon that bound back her hair.
"I don't believe you can guess where I'm started for," he said, after a moment of silence.