“I am afraid I cannot, not to-night. Mother wasn’t able to come with me. Tell Dan that I brought him his apples, and I’ll come and see him to-morrow if I possibly can. Tell him I won’t make him an out-and-out promise, ’cos if you make a promise to the poor and don’t keep it, Lord Jesus is angry, and you get cursed. I don’t quite know what cursed means, do you, Mrs. Scott?”
An old woman wearing a bedgown, and with a cap with a large frill, appeared in the porch of the tiny cottage.—Page [224]. Daddy’s Girl.
“Oh, don’t I,” answered Mrs. Scott. “It’s a pity you can’t come in, Missy. There, Danny, keep quiet; the little lady ain’t no time to be a-visiting of you. That’s him calling out, Missy; you wait a minute, and I’ll find out what he wants.”
Mrs. Scott hobbled back to the house, and the pony chafed restlessly at the delay.
“Quiet, darling; quiet, pet,” said Sibyl to her favorite, patting him on his arched neck.
Presently Mrs. Scott came back.
“Dan’s obligated for the apples, Miss, but he thinks a sight more of a talk with you than of any apples that ever growed. He ’opes you’ll come another day.”
“I wish, I do wish I could come in now,” said Sibyl wistfully; “but I just daren’t. You see, I have not even my riding habit on, I was so afraid someone would stop me from coming at all. Give Danny my love. But you have not told me yet what a curse means, Mrs. Scott.”
“Oh, that,” answered Mrs. Scott, “but you ain’t no call to know.”