“Well, captain, I can’t say but she did flare up about the Indians, when you said they were all thieves and paupers, stealing from the Government, and all that. But then, by what she says, she has knowed some decent ones in her time—friends of hers; an’ you know any one must say a good word for a friend. You’d do that yourself.”
“Maybe; I don’t say I wouldn’t,” he agreed. “But I do say, the friends would not be redskins. No, madame! They’re no fit friends for a gentleman to cultivate; and so I have told Dan. And if this girl owns such friends, it shows plainly enough that the class she belongs to is not a high one. Dan’s mother was a lady, Mrs. Huzzard! She was my wife, madame! And it is a distress for me to see any one received into our family who does not come up to that same level. That is just the state of the case, and I maintain my position in the matter; let Dan take on all the temper he likes about it.”
The lady of the pies did not respond to his remarks at once. She had an idea that she herself might fall under the ban of Captain Leek’s discriminating eyes, and be excluded from that upper circle of chosen humanity to which he was born and bred. He liked her pies, her flap-jacks, and even the many kinds of boiled dinners she was in the habit of preparing and garnishing with “dumplings.” So far as his stomach was concerned, she could rule supreme, for his digestion was of the best and her “filling” dishes just suited him. But Lorena Jane Huzzard had read in the papers some 74 romances of the “gentle folk” he was fond of speaking of in an intimate way. The gentle folk in her kind of stories always had titles, military or civil, and were generally English lords and ladies; the villains, as generally, were French or Italian. But think as she might over the whole list, she could remember none in which the highbred scion of blue blood had married either a cook or a milliner. One might marry the milliner if she was very young and madly beautiful, but Lorena Jane was neither. She remembered also that beautiful though the milliner or bailiff’s daughter, or housekeeper’s niece might be, it was only the villain in high life who married her. Then the marriage always turned out at last to be a sham, and the milliner generally died of a broken heart.
So Mrs. Huzzard sighed and, with a thoughtful face, stirred up the batter pudding.
Captain Leek had given her food for reflection of which he was little aware, and it was quite a little while before she remembered to answer his remarks.
“So Mr. Dan is showing temper, too, is he? Well—well—that’s a pity. He’s a good boy, captain. I wouldn’t waste my time to go against him, if I was you, and there he is now. Good-morning, Mr. Dan! Come right in! Breakfast over, but I’ll get you up a bite at any time, and welcome. It does seem right nice for you to be back in town again.”
Overton entered at her bidding, and smiled down from his tall stature to the broad, good-natured face she turned to him.
“Breakfast! Why, I’m thinking more about dinner, Mrs. Huzzard. I was up in the hills last night, and had a camp breakfast before you city folks were stirring. Where’s ’Tana?” 75
A dubious sniff from Captain Leek embarrassed Mrs. Huzzard for a moment. She thought he meant to answer and hesitated to give him a chance. But the sniff seemed to express all he wanted to say, and she flushed a little at its evident significance.
“Well, what’s the matter now?” demanded the younger man, impatiently, “where is she—do you know?”