"Now, Johanna," murmured John, looking more roguishly than he knew from under his long lashes, "you' a-foolin' me. If you had a letter you'd be monst'ous proud to show it. All you've got is a line or two saying, 'Send me my shawl,' or something o' that sort."
Johanna glanced up with injured surprise and then tittered, "Miss Barb wear a shawl—fo' de Lawd's sa-ake! Why, Mr. March, evm you knows betteh'n dat, seh." Her glow of happiness stayed while she drew forth a letter and laid it by her cup of coffee.
"Oh!"—the sceptic tossed his head—"seein's believin'; but I can't see so far off."
Johanna could hardly speak for grinning. "Dass heh letteh, seh, writ de ve'y same night what she tell you good-by."
"She wrote it"—John's heart came into his mouth—"that same night?"
"Dass what it saay, seh. D'ain't nothin' so ve'y private in it; ef yo' anteress encline you to read it, why——"
"Thank you," said the convert as his long arm took the prize.
There were three full sheets of it. He found himself mentioned again and again, but covertly drew his breath through his clenched teeth to see how necessary he had made himself to every page of her narrative and how utterly he was left out when not so needed. "She'll not get the same chance again," he thought as he finished.
"Johanna, have you—never mind, I was——" And he began to read it again.
Sitting thus absorbed, he was to the meek-minded girl before him as strong and fine a masculine nature as she had ever knowingly come near. But his intelligence was only masculine at last—a young man's intelligence. She kept her eyes in her plate; yet she had no trouble to see, perfectly, that her confidence was not ill-advised—a confidence that between the letter's lines he would totally fail to read what she had read.