"Oh!" she gasped, with quick, indrawn breath. "Who?"
"Don't be ungrammatical, whatever you do. She's a cashier in a restaurant, and she's a fine girl," he added, steadily, as if combating a prejudice. He forgot for the moment that such prejudices did not exist in Cyene.
Sis was instantly tender, and very, very serious.
"Of course she is, or you wouldn't care for her. Oh, I'd like to see her!"
"I'll take you up some day and show her to you."
"Oh, will you? Oh, when can I go?" She was smitten into gravity again. "Not till the teacher is well."
Herman pretended to be angry. "Dog take the teacher, the old spindle-legs! If I'd known he was going to raise such a ruction in our quiet and peaceful neighborhood, I never would have brought him here."
Mattie did not laugh; she pondered. She never quite understood her brother when he went off on those queer tirades, which might be a joke or an insult. He had grown away from her in his city life.
They rode on in silence the rest of the way, except now and then an additional question from Mattie concerning his sweetheart.
As they neared the farm-house she lost interest in all else but the condition of the young minister. They could see the light burning dimly in his room, and in the parlor and kitchen as well, and this unusual lighting stirred the careless young man deeply. It was associated in his mind with death and birth, and also with great joy. The house was lighted so the night his elder brother died, and it looked so to him when he whirled into the yard with the doctor when Mattie was born.