“Poor Ross,” she said, “oh, I am so sorry for him! A hopeless love is a sad thing indeed, but how useless to mourn for a lost hope. There is much brightness in life for him, if he will accept it. I hope he will.”
“Well, I jest do wonder if he will come,” said Mrs. Morris, looking down the road. “Dear me, I don’t hardly know how to act if he does come. I wonder what he’ll say to me first. Perhaps, after all, he don’t mean nothin’, but, la me, I don’t believe he’d ever looked at me that way if he hadn’t. I don’t see how Miss Elsworth can think they hain’t no use for a man about the house; why, la me, I don’t look no way, but what I see where a man would come handy. Oh, as sure as the world there he comes. Oh, oh, what’ll I ever say first? I wonder if he’ll talk the way Reuben did when he come a-courtin’ me. If he does I’ll know better what to say.”
CHAPTER XXXV.
A SAD EVENT.
Miss Elsworth stepped out of the door one afternoon and saw Bessie climbing cautiously along the ledge of rocks across the ravine. Her dark, luxuriant hair was floating like a dusky cloud about her shoulders, and there was a burning light in her dark blue eyes, and a crimson spot on either cheek.
“Bessie, Bessie,” Miss Elsworth called, “come down.”
“Hush,” said Bessie, raising a warning finger. “If you make a loud noise I’ll kill you; you know, don’t you?”
“Yes, I know,” said Blanche, with a fear that something was wrong. Bessie crept cautiously up the rocks, and seating herself she drew from her pocket her little pistol, and fired at what Miss Elsworth supposed to be an imaginary object.