“I trust you are here to stay,” said Emeline's visitor.
“I am never going back to Detroit,” she answered. He understood at once that she had met grief in Detroit, and that it might be other grief than the sort expressed by her black garment.
“We will be kind to you here.”
Emeline, finishing her task, glanced over her shoulder at him. She did not know how tantalizingly her face, close and clear in skin texture as the petal of a lily, flashed out her dislike. A heavier woman's rudeness in her became audacious charm.
“I like Beaver Island,” she remarked, winding the remaining bits of string into a ball. “'Every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.'”
“You mean Gentile man,” said King Strang. “He is vile, but we hope to get rid of him some time.”
“By breaking his fish-nets and stealing his sail-boats? Is it true that a Gentile sail-boat was sunk in Lake Galilee and kept hidden there until inquiry ceased, and then was raised, repainted, and launched again, a good Mormon boat?”
He linked his hands behind him and smiled at her daring.
“How many evil stories you have heard about us! My dear young lady, I could rejoin with truths about our persecutions. Is your uncle Cheeseman a malefactor?”