“She is a different creature! Vivacious, sparkling, charming. And all for that queer old man and queerer horse! Is it as my son has thought and said,—that the key to the child’s nature is love,—overflowing love? Well, there is, certainly, no mistaking the love between those two nor the want of it between these—two!” considered the unwilling hostess, turning her eyes upon the two old men, as Sutro and Resolved glared with instant and mutual dislike upon each other.
“Can it be possible that Tubbs is actually growing fond of the child, and is jealous?”
It seemed so, strange as it was; for when dinner was served, and Sutro, naturally, took his place behind Steenie’s chair, the other ancient worthy remarked with considerable sharpness: “Ye kin set down, can’t ye?” and pointedly pushed a chair back to designate where.
“Ten thousand thanks, my friend; when the Señorita has finished,” answered Sutro, suavely.
“Sin-your-eet-her, hey? What heathen gibberish is that, I’d like ter know? Thar’s yer place, an ’thar ye kin set er go ’ithout,—uther one,” retorted Tubbs, forgetting in his aversion to this “furriner” the respect due to the occasion.
“Luego [presently].” With the sweetest of smiles, old Vives, who had been watching Resolved’s manner of service, deftly turned his little lady’s plate, exactly as the other had done Madam Calthorp’s.
When Mr. Tubbs passed to his mistress the food which Mary Jane had carved, the stranger anticipated a similar attention to Steenie. So with everything; till even the house-mistress’s dignity yielded to a smile, and the little girl laughed outright.
“Why, you two funny men! What makes you go snap—snap—with things, so? And poor Mr. Resolved, if it’s your lumbago worse, just let Sutro take care of Grandmother, too. My Sutro can do everything beau-u-tifully; can’t you, dear?”
“Si? It is music thou speakest, carita.”
“T-wu-ho!” With this indescribable snort Mr. Tubbs retreated to the kitchen and threw himself down recklessly in Mary Ann’s own rocker. But the rocker was cushioned, and Resolved was tired; and the combination revealed the fact that even an enemy has his uses. “My-soul-I-declare! If he wants ter trot round waitin’ on younguns, let him trot! Ain’t no law ag’in it, as I know of.”