As she entered the passage which ran by the apartments devoted to the Caperses, the sound of Melville’s voice reached her. She was used already to hearing it pitched in the most disagreeable of tones, but there was something in these roars out of the common. She had heard him quarrelling with his grandmother, and, after intrusion on one such scene, had learned to take herself as far away as possible before witnessing another. Under all her gentleness, there was still enough of the old Kinsolving “substance” left in Content’s veins to make her wholly sympathize with Aunt Ruth’s views concerning Melville Capers’s treatment of his grandmother.
She paused an instant; then, arrested by the difference in the “roar,” the next she had pushed open the door and come upon the conflict. What it meant she could not guess; but what it was she saw only too plainly. With one bound she had caught up Fritz in her arms, and was holding the struggling child from further mischief.
But he was not minded to be so restrained. “Let me go! Let me go, you great girl, you!”
“Hush! Melville, stop calling, and tell me what it means,” answered Content, heedless of Fritz’s violent struggles but finding herself almost incompetent to control them.
“But I must call. There must somebody come. You can’t hold that infernal little beast and help grandma too. Ruth—Aunt Ruth! Grandmother! Somebody!!”
Grandmother Capers, feeling that she was no longer being assaulted, ventured to raise her head. “Don’t mind me, darling. I—I’m not hurt much, I—I think.” But the feebleness of her tone denied her statement, and with a new distress Content saw that the poor old lady’s nose was bleeding.
The sight of the scarlet flow he had caused for a moment incited Fritz to fresh struggles and fresh exhibitions of prowess. Truly, it had been reserved for the last of his race to be the fighter amongst them! Another moment and he realized that this was the sweet-faced new cousin Content who was holding him, and that Aunt Ruth had said of her that she “was very, very lovely in her mind, as well as in her person.”
The weather-cock curiosity of childhood veered on the instant. He ceased kicking, but none too soon for the girlish strength he had taxed so severely, and improved his chance to scrutinize the features so near his own. Aunt Ruth had told him about Content, during that sleepy, undressing talk of the night before.
“How do you know that she is pretty in her mind, too?” he had asked.
“Because her mind shows through her face,” Aunt Ruth had answered; and now he had an excellent opportunity to see where. Not that he supposed his cousin’s face would be really transparent, but he believed it must be different from that of others. The only difference he found, however, was in the singular clearness and gentleness of her expression.