"And flowers in your hair!" Bradford went on. "I thought you looked the slickest of anything I ever saw, then, Bethesda; and—well, I don't know but I think so still."
"Foolishness!" said Miss Bethesda, rising and wiping her hands. "Have a bit o' supper, now, Buckstone, do!"
"No, I couldn't eat," said the big man, drawing his hand slowly across his brow. "I couldn't eat your victuals, Bethesda, and have you thinkin' of me the way you—you said. It's all true, it seems born in on me to feel. I've done a good bit o' thinkin', sittin' here alone. I never realized it before, but the fact seems to be that I've been a hog, and bein' so, I can't sit down with no lady and eat her victuals, you see."
"Foolishness!" said Miss Bethesda again, looking rather discomposed. "You mustn't think too much of what I said, Buckstone. Mebbe I spoke too hash—"
"Oh, you spoke out!" said the man. "Needn't ever anybody tell me that Bethesda Pool can't open her head. When them waters is troubled, there's no mistake about their movin'; I knowed that before. You spoke out once before to me, Bethesda, and the sound of it stays with me yet. There! I guess I'll be goin'. You said you'd lend me a stick, did ye?"
"Good Isick!" cried Miss Bethesda, standing up to bar his way, in real distress. "Buckstone, you can't go out in this cold in the middle of the night, and with your ankle that way. You'll ketch your death. Stop where you be, like a sensible man, and have some supper with me!"
"S'pose I do ketch my death!" said Buckstone; "aint no one to care, that I know of. Nan's gone, and there's no one else, is there, Bethesda?"
"Good Isick!" cried Miss Bethesda again, and wrung her hands in sheer desperation. Whither were they drifting?
"If I thought—" Buckstone Bradford was speaking again, slowly this time, the anger clean gone out of him, but with an earnestness that shook his deep voice, and made the brave little woman before him tremble, and her cheek flush as it had not done for many a day—