“See here, you lunkhead, don’t you handle that work-table as if it was a ton of coal. Don’t you see you’ve broken the glass!”
The young girl had just emerged from the door.
“Oh, what a pity!” she cried. “I loved it so. No, please don’t touch it again. I’ll lift it down myself.”
She had mounted a chair now which stood by the tail of the cart and, against the protest of the group, was carefully disentangling the precious legs from the chaos of pipes, tubs, and stove-fittings.
“Oh, you darling little table! Nobody ever thought about you. It’s all my fault. No, go away all of you. You shan’t one of you touch it. I’ll lift it down myself. Oh, the drawer has caught in that stove door! Uncle, won’t you just push it back so I can——”
“Permit me to help this—” came a voice from behind. Before she could catch her breath, an arm reached forth, lifted the precious table clear of the entangling mass and, without waiting for protest or thanks, carried it into the house at the feet of the astonished mother. Then with a remark, “That he was glad to be of service,” Mr. Joseph Grimsby, occupant of the third floor, backed out and rejoined the astonished girl.
“A lovely bit of Chippendale, is it not, Miss Ford? It is Miss Ford, isn’t it? Yes, our old colored janitor told me you were expected to-day. I and my chum live up-stairs. But please don’t worry about the glass. That is quite easily replaced. I must apologize for my intrusion, but when I saw what a beauty it was, and heard you say how you loved it, I had to help. There is nothing like Chippendale, and it’s getting rarer every day.”
“Oh, but you were very kind. It was my grandmother’s and I have always used it since I was a girl. Thank you very much.”
Joe was about to say: “That—” but checked himself in time—“if she would permit the digression, she was still a girl, and a very pretty one.” In fact, he had not seen any one quite as pretty for a very long period of time. He had thought so when he stood in the doorway, watching her efforts to save the table from further destruction. He had only a view of her back, but he had noticed in that brief glance the trim, rounded figure, curve of her neck, and the way her tight woollen sweater clung to her small waist and hips. He had caught, too, a pair of very small and well-shod feet.
When she turned in surprise and looked him square in the eyes, in one of those comprehensive, searching glances, and his own lenses had registered her fresh color, small ears, and dainty, enchanting mouth and teeth, the whole surrounded by a wealth of light, golden hair, escaping from the thraldom of a tam-o’-shanter hat, part of her working clothes, he would have taken an oath on a pile of Bibles as high as a church steeple that she was altogether the most radiantly attractive young woman he had ever met in the whole course of his natural existence.