She smiled at him but said nothing and I went over to the fountain to get a drink.
When I came back she was asking him to please get her a handkerchief.
Oh! how delighted he was to have a mother to wait on. I followed along the grass by the veranda as he went to his room and fussed about a drawer to get the finest and whitest one he could for her.
He had found a dear gentle mother, but I guessed that he would have to wait on her. She was not active and stirring like Mrs. Devering and evidently had been accustomed to having everything done for her.
While the lad sat with eager eyes bent on the hammock and I stood discreetly among some seringas, I heard a step on the path behind me, and to my surprise saw another little woman, very much the type of Mrs. Duff.
This one was slight and graceful too, but much older than Mrs. Duff. She had a fine face and very grave sad eyes, and she was dressed in a severely plain walking suit.
Who was this? Oh! I knew. It was some guest from the Good American's for she had come down the trail by the Merry-Tongue River.
She paused beside me and gave me a slow thoughtful stare as if recognising my right to some attention, then she went on to the veranda.
Dallas stood up when he saw her and smiled but did not speak. His mother, however, rose up in her hammock with a glad cry of recognition and said in French, "Marie, is it you?"
The stranger went up to her and replied quietly in the same language, "You did not appear for lunch so I walked to see you."