"No," I said, with equal simplicity, meeting him on his own ground—quite as if an attack of measles at some earlier age was under discussion, to which he had fallen a victim while I had escaped. As he spoke his fingers tightened over the child's hand. Then he turned and straightened her hood, tucking the loose strands of hair under its edge with his fingers.
"You seem rather fond of that little girl; is she any relation?" I asked, forgetting that I had asked almost that same question before.
"No, she isn't any relation—just Ben Mulford's girl." He raised his other hand and pressed the child's head down upon the deerskin waistcoat, close into the fur, with infinite tenderness. The child reached up her small, chapped hand and laid it on his cheek, cuddling closer, a shy, satisfied smile overspreading her face.
My topics were exhausted, and we rode on in silence, he sitting in front of me, his eyes now so completely hidden in the shadow of his broad-brimmed hat that I only knew they were fixed on me when some sudden tilt of the stage threw the light full on his face. I tried offering him a cigar, but he would not smoke—"had gotten out of the habit of it," he said, "being shut up so long. It didn't taste good to him, so he had given it up."
When the stage reached the crossing near the college gate and stopped, he asked quietly:—
"You get out here?" and lifted the child as he spoke so that her soiled shoes would not scrape my coat. In the action I saw that his leg pained him, for he bent it suddenly and put his hand on the kneecap.
"I hope your mother will be better," I said. "Good-night; good-night, little girl."
"Thank you; good-night," he answered quickly, with a strain of sadness that I had not caught before. The child raised her eyes to mine, but did not speak.
I mounted the hill to the big college building, and stopped under a light to look back; following with my eyes the stage on its way to the station. The child was on her knees, looking at me out of the window and waving her hand, but the man sat by the lamp, his head on his chest.