“Eh? Neale knows ’em? Wal—mebbe so, mebbe so,” grunted Mr. Buckham. “Just the same, I know lots of folks I wouldn’t make too free with. Wait and try ’em out,” advised the old farmer.
If Ruth had had any doubts about the trapeze artist and her father, she was at once disarmed when Barnabetta came down to dinner. And Agnes, forgetting her first unpleasant introduction to the strollers in the woods, was delighted with her protégé.
Barnabetta was a dark, glowing beauty. Her curly hair, which made her look so boyish before, framed her thin, striking features most becomingly. Her figure was lithe without being lean.
The little girls, who had not seen Barnabetta arrive in her boy’s apparel, were taken with the trapeze artist at once. Agnes had told them what Barnabetta did in the circus, and of course Dot was extremely interested.
“Oh, my!” she said, her eyes shining and her cheeks flushed. “Do—do you climb ‘way up on those trapezers at the circus and turn inside outside, just as we saw once? Oh! that must be just heaveningly—mustn’t it, Tess?”
Tess was quite as excited over the guest herself, and overlooked Dot’s new rendering of certain words for the sake of asking:
“Doesn’t it make your head go round and round like a whirligig, to turn over on the trapeze? It does mine, though Neale showed me how to do it on the bar he set up in our garret.”
The simple kindness and cordiality of the Corner House girls was a distinct surprise to Barnabetta. At first she showed something of her doubt of this reception she was accorded by such complete strangers. They were all so completely different from her, and their manner of life so entirely strange to her.
The dining room service, the soft lights, the pleasant officiousness of Unc’ Rufus, and the girls’ own gay conversation, was all a revelation to the circus performer. Even Aunt Sarah Maltby’s grim magnificence at her end of the table helped to tame the wildness of Barnabetta Scruggs.
If Mrs. MacCall did not altogether approve of these circus people, she said nothing and did nothing to show such disapproval. Barnabetta began to see that these good folk were very simple and kindly, and wished only to see her at her ease and desired to make her feel at home.