“Do you wish to be naughty?” June asked with a little shiver.
“I would rather be good, if folks would be good to me. I could be good, for any one like you, lady, but when they are so awful mean to me sometimes I think I could kill them. How can I be good when everybody is so cross to me? Mam scolds and beats me, and Crisp and everybody else is cross to me but you, and your brother. Oh, I could die for him; he was so kind to get me out of that place, and I’d—oh, I’d die for him!”
“He would not let you do that, and if you lived with me I would not scold you, neither would Scott, and papa—why, he’s too sick.”
“But your ma would,” Zula said, quickly.
“Well, mama lets me do about as I please, or as brother Scott says.”
Scott had remained a silent listener, though he had watched the changing countenance of the child before him, and as he turned his gaze at one time from the carriage window he saw the black eyes fastened upon him in such a searching way that he almost started. There certainly was a significance in the look, and though Scott Wilmer was counted one of the most discerning, he could not determine the exact nature of the gaze. Several times she turned with that same gaze and at last he asked:
“Well, little girl, what do you think of me, do I look very cross?”
“Oh, no, sir, you are so kind that I would give my life for you,” she answered, with a burning light in the great black eyes.