This was not at all unusual. It was Joe’s way with every fresh girl he met. Such hyperbole was only a safety-valve, giving vent to his enthusiastic appreciation. He had had similar outbursts over two or three since he had left Paris. He had not only looked a similar declaration into the eyes of the inamorata who had begun her letter with “Dearest,” and ended it with an initial—the letter he had cremated and tucked away in the burial-plot of his forgetfulness—but he had told her so in so many plain words, and had told her a lot of other things besides, which the young beauty had believed.
The scribe who knew them both will tell you that Sue Preston, despite Joe’s panegyrics, was just a trim, tidy, well-built, rosy, and thoroughly wholesome girl, no prettier than half a dozen other Southern girls brought up in her own town, which she had left when the gentleman from Connecticut had married her mother. That her independence of speech and bearing, as well as her kindness, came from the fact that she was obliged to earn her own living with her voice, singing at private houses and teaching music. The life, which, while it had not dulled her enthusiasm or love for things worth the having, had taught her a knowledge of the world far beyond her years. This could have been detected in the short talk she had had with Moses, after Joe, having reached the limit of his intrusion, had lifted his hat in respectful admiration and taken himself off to his office, where he spent what was left of the morning pouring into Atwater’s ears a wholly inflated account of the charms of the new arrival, and how plans must be laid at once to get on the friendliest terms possible with the occupants of the first floor.
“You ask me, young mistiss, who is dat gentleman?” Moses had rejoined in answer to her question, her eyes fixed on Joe’s graceful, manly figure as he swung down the street.
“Dat’s Mr. Grimsby, and dere ain’t nobody moved into dis house since I been here, and dat’s eleven years next June, any better. Fust time I see him, I says to Matilda: ‘Matilda, don’t he look like Marse Robin when he was his age? He’s got just de air of him.’ Don’t care for nobody dat ain’t quality. Ain’t you from the South, young mistiss?” Moses never forgot his slave days when he was talking to his own people.
“Yes, Moses, I’m from North Carolina.”
“And de mistiss, too?”
“Yes; mother, too.”
“But dat—dat—” the darky hesitated, “dat gentleman dat—dat married yo’ ma. He ain’t one our people, is he?”
The girl laughed, a crisp, sparkling laugh, as if she really enjoyed answering his questions.
“No, he’s a Yankee.”