"Oh, is it? Tell me—is she nice—Sissy?"
"What?" asked the boy, so surprised that he withdrew his attention from on high and stared out at the man on the door-step.
There came a laugh out of the darkness. "It is an odd question, but then everything is so odd out here, I half hoped you wouldn't notice it. But you do know them, evidently. I wonder—do you mind going up there with me and showing me the way?"
But his last question had suddenly recalled to Jack Cody the reason why he wasn't at that moment one of the dancing black figures on the hill. The boy looked from his mother's wrapper to the man's face, growing more distinct now, out on the door-step, and the amused expression he saw there his sore egotism attributed to a personal cause. So he promptly slammed the door in the man's face.
There was an instant's pause out in the blackness, made denser now that the candle's light from the cabin was cut off; then a short, nonplussed laugh.
"Miles, old chap," the young man was saying to himself, as he turned cautiously to jump from the stoop and mount the hill, "this is Bedlam you've fallen into—this mad little mining-town ten thousand miles off in a brand-new corner of the world, all hills and characters! Now, what might be the sex of that animal you were talking to? And what in the name of peace are these Madigans? Are they the ones you're look—Steps, as I value my immortal soul!" he exclaimed, rubbing his shin where he had struck against the wandering Madigan stairway. "It would not have surprised me, now, if I had had to climb that hill on my hands and knees, and stand on my head when I got to the door, to knock at it with my heels!"
Miss Madigan's demeanor was beautiful to see. Just a bit—oh, the least bit of I-told-you-so in her manner, but also a generous willingness to postpone the acceptance of apologies due to one long misunderstood, and to take for granted the family's obligation.
"The estate must be worth at least ten thousand a year," she confided in her delighted perturbation to Frances, as she curled her hair. And Frank looked up at her, soulful and uncomprehending, and a bit cross-eyed, for the curl dangling down over her nose. "He'll marry Kate, of course—I had no idea he was so young. He'll just be the savior of the whole family. It's a providence,—Miles Madigan's dying when he did,—and wasn't it fortunate that Nora sent my letter back?... You will be good at the table, Frances, and show cousin Miles how nicely you can use your fork?... He is practically a cousin.... Have you washed your hands?"
"Hm-mm," murmured Frank, mendaciously. And then, as Aunt Anne appeared to doubt her word, "Just you ask God if I haven't," she suggested solemnly, carefully putting her hands behind her.