“Yes, honey,” answered Dinah. “This is Hetty, and this is Lyd, and this——”
She didn’t finish the sentence, for Hetty, who had been earnestly scanning Marian’s features, grasped her dress, saying, “Whar was you born?”
“Jest like them Higginses,” muttered Dinah. “In course, Miss Grey don’t want to be twitted with bein’ a Yankee the fust thing.”
But Hetty had no intentions of casting reflections upon the place of Marian’s birth. Like Josh she had detected something familiar in the young girl’s face, and twice she had swept her hand across her eyes to clear away the mist and see if possible what it was which puzzled her so much.
“I was born a great many miles from here,” said Marian, and ere Hetty could reply, Josh, whose gaze had all the time been riveted upon her, stuttered out, “Sh-sh-she is-s-s-s like M-m-m-Miss Marian.”
Yes, this was the likeness they had seen, but Marian would rather the first recognition should come from another source, and she hastened to reply, “Oh, Mrs. Raymond, you mean. Alice noticed it when I first went to Riverside. You suppose your young mistress dead, do you not?”
Instantly Dinah’s woolen apron was called into use, while she said, “Yes, poor dear lamb; if thar’s any truth in them Scripter sayin’s, she’s a burnin’ and a shining light in de kingdom come.” And the old negress launched forth into a long eulogy, in the midst of which Frederic appeared in quest of Marian.
“I am listening to praises of your wife,” she said, and there was a mischievous triumph in her eye as she saw how his forehead flushed, for he was beginning to be slightly annoyed when she, as she often did, alluded to his wife.
Why need she thrust that memory continually upon him? Was it not enough for him to know that somewhere in the world there was a wife, and that he would rather hear any one else speak of her than the bright-haired Marian Grey.
“Dinah can be very eloquent at times,” he said, “but come with me to Alice. She has been sadly frightened on your account,” and he led the way to the piazza, where the blind girl was waiting for them.