“I tended them,” answered the girl, quietly.
They all now arose from the table. The girl cleared the board, and carried all the things out to wash up. Carl begged his guests to excuse him, and went out to give the horses a rub down and another feed.
Captain Clifton threw himself into the arm-chair, crossed his legs, took out his tablets, and began to make memorandums.
Frank impertinently peeped over his shoulder and read—“Mem. Ask my mother if she can take a little girl as a companion.” Clifton closed the book instantly, in silent rebuke of Frank’s impudence. And Frank himself walked about fidgety and unhappy for not knowing what to do with himself, until, at a restless movement of the old man, he went and poured out a mug of water, and carefully keeping behind the eye of the patient, lifted up his head and gave him drink, and after setting down the empty mug, fanned him till he went sound asleep again.
The brother and sister soon returned. Carl sat down and begun his best efforts at entertainment. But Frank, who amused himself by seeing everything, saw Kate go up stairs into the loft and bring down and carry out his own and his friend’s regimentals.
After which she came in, and drawing a stool to the table, sat down and began to knit, as quietly, as silently, as if no strangers were in her hut.
Carl took down and laid upon the table a rough draught board, and invited his guests to play with each other.
Frank eagerly caught at the opportunity, but Captain Clifton declined, on the plea of distaste to the amusement.
“Play with me, my dear fellow, for pity sake,” said Frank to Carl, “and don’t mind my friend there! You see, he doesn’t want to play, neither does he want to talk, nor to do anything but sit and think about Miss Clifton.”
“Do play with him, and keep him quiet, if you can, my good youth,” said Captain Clifton, turning his chair slightly aside from the table, so that his face was in the shade. Opposite to him, at the other corner of the table, sat Katherine, with the light shining full upon her face and head, as she bowed it over her work. Captain Clifton did not fall into a brown study, he fell into a study of the brown girl. Let no one presume to misinterpret him. It was not likely that a man of twenty-five should fall in love with a girl of fourteen. Dotards do such things, not men. Then it was utterly preposterous to suppose that Archer Clifton, of Clifton, Captain in the —— Regiment of Cavalry, the fastidious amateur in female beauty, should be smitten with a hard-featured, sun-burned girl, in a coarse, homespun frock, that the all-accomplished scholar should be charmed with the little ignoramus; that the arrogant conservative of rank should condescend to a low-born mountaineer; or that the expectant bridegroom of the beautiful and haughty Carolyn Clifton, of Clifton, should wish to marry a girl who united all these repulsive qualities of ignorance, ruggedness, and low birth. Yet if he could have looked only two short years into the future!