“Dumb!” exclaimed Peter, with peculiar emphasis on reaching the cellar. “How you do, Missis Lilly? Oberjoyed to see you lookin’ so fresh. Just looked in to ax how you’s gettin’ along.”
Need we say that Peter’s warning word was not thrown away on Hester Sommers, who was seated in her corner embroidering with gold thread a pair of red morocco slippers. But, forewarned though she was, her presence of mind was put to a tremendous test when, all unexpectedly, George Foster descended the steps and stood before her. Fortunately, while the youth was bestowing a hearty nautical greeting on Mrs Lilly—for his greeting was always hearty, as well to new acquaintances as to old friends—Hester had time to bend over her work and thus conceal the sudden pallor followed by an equally sudden flush which changed her complexion from a bluish grey to a burnt sienna. When George turned to glance carelessly at her she was totally absorbed in the slipper.
The negro watched the midshipman’s glance with keen interest. When he saw that only a passing look was bestowed on Hester, and that he then turned his eyes with some interest to the hole where Sally was pounding coffee and gasping away with her wonted energy, he said to himself mentally, “Ho, Dinah, but you am a cleber woman! Geo’ge don’t rignise her more’n if she was a rigler coloured gal! I do b’lieve her own fadder wouldn’t know her!”
He then proceeded to have a talk with Mrs Lilly, and while he was thus engaged the middy, who had an inquiring disposition, began to look round the cellar and take mental-artistic notes of its appearance. Then he went up to Hester, and, taking up one of the finished slippers, examined it.
“Most beautiful! Exquisite!” he said. “Does it take you long to do this sort of thing?”
The girl did not reply.
“She’s dumb!” said Peter quickly.
“Ah, poor thing!” returned Foster, in a voice of pity. “Deaf, too, I suppose?”
“Well, I don’t know as to dat, Geo’ge.”
“Is this one dumb too?” asked the middy, pointing to the coffee-hole.