"Well, they ought to be; they're my best, except my white dress. I thought you'd like 'em; I wore 'em a-purpose."
"Like 'em? They're—you're jest as purty as a red lily er a wild rose in the wheat—ahem! Ain't she, Bert, ol' boy? We're jest about starvin' to death, we are."
"I knew you'd be. What'll I stir up for supper? Biscuits?"
"Um, um! Say, what y' s'pose I've got to go with 'em?"
"Honey."
"Oh, you're too sharp," wailed Ans, while Flaxen went off into a peal of laughter. "Say, Bert's be'n in the damnedest—excuse me—plaguedest temper fer the last two munce as you ever did see."
While this chatter was going on Bert sat silent and unsmiling on the back seat. He was absorbed in seeing the exquisite colour that played in her cheek and the equally charming curves of her figure. She was well dressed and was wonderfully mature. He was saying to himself: "Ans ain't got no more judgment than a boy. We can't keep that girl here. More'n that, the girl never'll be contented again, unless—" He did not allow himself to go farther. He dared not even think farther.
They had a merry time that night, quite like old times. The biscuits were light and flaky, the honey was delightsome, and the milk and butter (procured specially) were fresh. They shouted in laughter as Flaxen insisted on their eating potatoes with a fork, and opposed the use of the knife in scooping up the honey from their plates! Even the saturnine Bert forgot his gloom and laughed too, as Ans laboriously dipped his honey with a fork, and, finally growing desperate, split a biscuit in half, and in the good old boyish way sopped it in the honey.
"There, that's the Christian way of doing things!" he exulted, while Flaxen laughed. How bright she was—how strange she acted! There were moments when she embarrassed them by some new womanly grace or accomplishment, some new air which she had caught from her companions or teachers at school. It was truly amazing how much she had absorbed outside of her regular studies. She indeed was no longer a girl; she was a young woman, and to them a beautiful one.
Not a day passed without some added surprise which made Anson exult and say, "She's gettin' her money's worth down there—no two ways about that."