“How, sir?” and the black eyes flashed haughtily upon him.
Nothing abashed, he continued: “As’t you if you’re pretty well, but no matter, I know you to be by your looks. I’ve got a lot of finery that I know you want.” And on opening his boxes, he spread out upon the carpet the collars and under-sleeves, which had been bought with a view to this very night. Very disdainfully Isabel turned away, saying she never traded with peddlers.
“I wonder if you don’t,” returned Ben, with imperturbable gravity. “Wall, now, seein’ it’s me, buy somethin’, dew. Here’s a bracelet that can’t be beat,” and he held up to view Marian’s soft hair, which, in the bright firelight, looked singularly beautiful.
Isabel did unbend a little now. There was no sham about that, she knew, and, taking it in her hand, she tried to clasp it on her round, white arm; but it would not come together. It was not made for her!
“It isn’t large enough,” said she; “it must have been intended for some child.”
“Shouldn’t wonder if you’d hit the nail right on the head,” returned Ben, and taking the bracelet he continued, “Mebby ’twas meant for this wee one—who knows?” and he fastened it on Alice’s slender wrist. “Fits to a T,” said he, “and you have it, too. Them clasps is little hearts, do you see?”
Frederic now entered the room, and holding up her arm, Alice said, “Look, is it pretty?”
“Yes, very,” he replied, bending down to examine it, while Ben watched him narrowly, wondering how he would feel if he knew from whose tresses that braid was made.
“Harnsome color, ain’t it, Square?” he said, holding Alice’s hand a little more to the light, and continuing, “Now there’s them that don’t like red hair, but I swan I’ve seen some that wan’t so bad. Now when it curls kinder—wall, like a gimblet, you know. I’ve got a gal to hum I call my sister, and her hair’s as nigh this color as two peas, or it was afore ’twas shaved. She’s been awful sick with the heart disorder, and fever, and I tell you, Square, if you’d o’ seen her pitchin’ and divin’, and rollin’ from one end of the bed to t’other, bitin’ her tongue and yankin’ out her hair by han’fuls, I rather guess you’d felt kinder streaked. It made a calf of me, though I didn’t feel so bad then as when she got weaker, and lay so still that we held a feather to her lips to see if she breathed.”
“Oh, did she die?” asked Alice, who had been an attentive listener.