"No," Luella repeated soothingly, "no, I see. That's a fine cat, ain't it? I've read of 'em—Angora, ain't it?—but I never saw one. They say they're mostly deaf. Is that one?"
"Yes. No—I don't know. I don't believe she is," the girl murmured, brokenly. She seemed newly distressed; her lips, very red against her white cheeks, quivered, her full breast strained against her white linen blouse.
Luella strode lightly about the disorderly little kitchen; she had forgotten the very presence of the girl, it seemed, for as she gathered the soiled dishes, coaxed the fire, filled the kettle and hastily removed the traces of the ill-fated huckleberry bread, she hummed a tune and appeared to see only her work.
Caroline was on her knees before the Angora and knew nothing of the flight of time, though it was really hardly more than a quarter of an hour before the kitchen rivalled Luella's in neatness and the pine table in the living-room, covered with a fresh cloth, and shiny plated silver, only waited its host.
"Now if you'll step out and call your husband, Miss—I didn't just get the name?" said Luella invitingly.
The girl rose from the chair where she had been sitting, motionless, except for her eyes, which had followed every movement of the older woman. She stood very straight and threw her head back with a gesture almost defiant.
"My name is Dorothy Hartley," she declared, and ran abruptly out of the cottage.
"Well, well," Luella shook her head whimsically, "she's pretty well wrought up, isn't she? Sweet little thing, too—real loveable, I sh'd say. It don't seem possible he'd be mean to her. But o' course he wants his breakfast fit to eat, just the same. I put a place for you, Car'line, 'cause I know you c'n eat, no matter what time 'tis—you're 's empty's a bag. There he comes—my, but he's haughty! He looks like somebody in one o' those novels, don't he, now?"
They came slowly up the path, hand in hand, like children, her gray eyes on the ground, his black ones challenging the world. The clear mountain air carried his words easily to the two in the door:
"Now, dearest, be brave! Remember, we are right, and we know we are right."