Left to himself, the bondsman finished trimming the ivory to a proper size, and neatly fitted it into the frame. Then he spread the papers out, and in some haste, for the winter’s day was fast waning, he resumed his scribbling, varied by intervals of pen-chewing and knitting of brows. Finally he gave a sigh of relief, and taking a blank sheet he copied in a bold hand-writing what was written on the paper he had last toiled over. Then picking up the miniature, he touched it to his lips. “She was sent to give me faith again in women,” he said, as he folded the miniature into the paper.
“Well, old man,” he remarked, as he passed from the stable, to the dog, who had followed in his footsteps, and sought to attract his attention by fawning upon him, “has blindman’s holiday come at last? Wait till I bestow this, and get a bite from Sukey to put in my pocket, and we’ll be off for a look at the rabbits. ’T is a poor sport, but ’t will do till something better comes. Oh for a war!”
The bondsman passed into the kitchen, and made his plea to Sukey for a supper he could take away with him. The request was granted, and while the cook went to the larder to get him something, Charles stepped into the hall and listening intently he stole upstairs and tapped gently on a door. Getting no reply, he opened it, and tiptoeing hastily to the dressing-stand, he tucked the packet under the powder-box. A minute later he was back in the kitchen, and erelong was stamping through the snow, whistling cheerfully, which the hound echoed by yelps of excited delight.
Janice was unusually thoughtful all through supper, and little less so afterwards. She was sent to her room earlier than usual, that she might make up in advance for the early start of the journey, and she did not dally with her disrobing, the room being almost arctic in its coldness. But after she had put on the short night-rail that was the bed-gown of the period, the girl paused for a moment in front of her mirror, even though she shivered as she did so.
“I really thought ’t was for me he cared,” she said. “But she is so much more beautiful that—” Janice tucked the flyaway locks into the snug-fitting nightcap, which together with the bed-curtains formed the protections from the drafts inevitable to leaky windows and big chimneys, and having thus done her best to make herself ugly, she blew out her candle, and as she crept into bed, she remarked, “’T was very foolish of me.”
XIV
A QUESTION CONCERNING THALIA
All was animation at Greenwood the next morning, while yet it was dark, and as Janice dressed by candle-light, she trembled from something more than the icy chill of the room. The girl had been twice in her life to New York, once each to Newark and to Burlington, and though her visits to Trenton were of greater number, the event was none the less too rare an occurrence not to excite her. Her mother had to order her sharply to finish what was on her plate at breakfast, or she would scarce have eaten.
“If thou dost not want to be frozen, lass, before we get to Trenton,” warned the squire, “do as thy mother says. Stuff cold out of the stomach, or ’t is impossible to keep the scamp out of the blood.”
“Yes, dadda,” said the girl, obediently falling to once more. After a few mouthfuls she asked, “Dadda, who was Thalia?”
"’T was a filly who won the two-year purse at the Philadelphia races in sixty-eight,” the squire informed her, between gulps of sausage and buckwheat cakes.