"And he'll be sure to bring me something pretty—he always does."
"He knows what's what," responded Ben, stealing a sidelong, admiring glance at the sweet, young face in the skiff.
If a compliment was intended, it was not understood by the hearer.
"Yes, father always knows just what suits me best. Dear father! I hope he will come home to-night. I've been out picking blackberries for supper—just look at my hands," and she held up two pretty, dimpled hands, as if to show how charming they were, instead of to betray the purple-tipped fingers.
But Alice Wilde did not know they were pretty, in sober truth, for she had never been praised, flattered, nor placed in a situation where she could institute comparisons.
"Well, Ben, good-by. I shall float down the river a few miles, and if I don't see him, I can row back alone."
"You're mighty pert with the oars, for a gal. I never seed no woman 't could row a boat like you, Miss Alice."
"Thank you," she said, with a bright smile, as she turned her little birchen skiff about and struck out into the river again.
Ben watched that graceful form until it was out of sight, heaving a sigh, as he turned again to his work, which told how absorbed he had been.
Drifting down the river, under the shadow of precipitous bluffs, while the sunshine flecked with gold the rolling prairie-land upon the opposite side, the young girl sang wild negro-melodies which she had learned of the two old colored people who formed her father's retinue of house-servants. Rich and clear, her voice floated through those beautiful solitudes, heard only by the envious birds in the trees which overtopped the bluffs.