As soon as she was gone, Dorothy said, "I brought you a basket of things I hoped you wanted; and I'll not stop so long away from you another time."
"Aye, my lamb, but ye have stayed away a sore long time. But now that ye're a young lady, ye've pleasanter folk to talk to than your old nurse."
"Now, Ruth," Dorothy threatened playfully, "if you talk to me in that fashion, I'll go straight home again."
The old eyes were turned upon her wistfully, while the knotted fingers nervously handled the knitting-needles. Then Ruth said, "Moll Pitcher was here yesterday to see me."
"Was she? What did she say?" asked Dorothy, all in the same breath; for she took the keenest interest in Moll and her talk.
"I made her talk to me o' ye, my lamb. An' I was sorry for it afterwards; for what she said kept me wakeful most o' the night. She did not want to tell me, either; but I made her."
"But what did she say?" Dorothy repeated eagerly. "Tell me just what she said, Ruth."
The old woman hesitated, as though unwilling to reply. Then her restless fingers became quiet, and she said slowly and earnestly: "She told me that your fate was about ye now, fast an' firm, an' that no one could change it. An' she said your future days were tied about with a scarlet color."
"Oh, Ruth," Dorothy said at once, "she must mean that war is coming to us." She was entirely free from any self-consciousness, and her eyes looked with earnest surprise into the solemn old face lying back upon the pillows. But her color deepened as Ruth added still more impressively: "Nay, my lamb, she told me o' war times to come, beside. But she meant that a redcoat would steal your heart away; an' she said that naught could change it,—that his heart was set to ye as the flowers to the sunshine,—that ye held him to wind about your little finger, as I wind my wool. An' she said that sorrow, deep sorrow, would come to ye with it."
Tears were now dropping down the withered cheeks, and Dorothy thought her own were coming from sympathy with the grief of her old nurse. For a moment—only a moment—she felt frightened and almost helpless, even turning to glance quickly over her shoulder at the door of the outer room, as if to see if the redcoat were already in pursuit of her.