“I don’t want to keep your lady friend penned up in there any longer,” said The Viscount, as he started to move away.
“Oh, don’t go,” said the maker of lamp black, “I don’t know why she acts that way; stay and have dinner with us. We never let a stranger go by without furnishing him with some food.”
Ordinarily, The Viscount Adare, unconventional as he was, would have scurried away from such grimy surroundings, but there was something that appealed to him about the lamp black maker’s lady, even in her coat of ebony grime, that made him decide to tarry.
“Thanks, I will stay,” he replied, “but I’ll go to the barn so as to give your ‘friend,’ as you call her, a chance to come out.”
“Don’t you bother to do that,” said the black man. “She is acting foolish today; don’t give her the satisfaction to move a step. She never minded showing herself to anybody before.”
These last words were secretly pleasing to the Viscount, as it showed that the young woman recognized in him a person of superior sensibilities, but he hurried to the barn until he knew that she had been given time to escape to the house. But he could not help hearing the lamp black maker loudly chiding her for modesty, a trait she had never displayed previously. Pretty soon he saw the fellow making trips to the spring, carrying water buckets into the house. The Viscount sat on the doorstep of the barn, watching the juncos flying about among the savin bushes in the clearing, or his eyes feasting on the cornelian red foliage of the sassafras trees on the hill, inwardly speculating if with her black disguise washed off, the young woman, whose higher nature he had aroused, would be as good looking as he imagined her to be. He made a mental picture of her loveliness, ranking her close beside that of high bred beauties of his own land, of the types depicted by Romney, Kneller and Lely.
It was not long before he saw her emerge from the house, all washed and scrubbed, with her hair neatly combed, clad in a spick and span “butternut” frock. As she came towards him, he noted that she was a trifle above the average height, and her feet, despite the rough brogans she wore, were very small. He saw, to his amazement, that she was the counterpart of his mental picture, only more radiantly lovely. When she drew near, she asked him, her face lighting up very prettily, as she spoke, if he would like to come to the house to rest, that she would soon prepare dinner, and hoped that he would not be too critical of her humble efforts as a cook.
Her eyes seldom met his, but he could see that they were large and grey-brown, with delicately penciled black brows, and black lashes. Her face was rather long and sallow, or rather of a pinkish pallor. Her hair was cameo brown, her nose long and straight, the lines of her mouth delicate and refined, with lips unusually thin. He had noticed, as she came towards him, that her slender form swayed a little forward as she walked, reminding him of the mythical maiden Syrinx, daughter of the River God, whom the jealous-hearted Pan changed into a reed.
The Viscount Adare was far more disconcerted than his hostess, as he followed her to the log house. Just as they approached the door she whispered, “I hope that you will forgive the awful exhibition I made of myself.”
Indoors she sat down on one of the courting blocks by the great open hearth, where pots of various sizes hung from the cranes. The man, who was still trying to get the lamp black out of his curly hair and beard, was only partially dressed, and looked all the world like pictures of the lascivious Lupercalian Pan himself.