“I could help some, if you’d let me, Mirandy,” he hesitated, “for I know right well what she’s needin’.”
“Well, what is it?” demanded the girl. There was that in his voice which oppressed her with a vague misgiving.
“It’s good, fresh, roast meat she wants!” said Dave.
There was a pause. Miranda turned and looked out through the stable door, across the glimmering fields.
“It’s her blood’s got thin an’ poor,” continued Dave. “Nothin’ but flesh meat’ll build her up now, an’ she’s jest got to have it.” He was beginning to feel it was time that Miranda experienced the touch of a firm hand.
“I don’t believe you!” said the girl, and turned hotly to her milking.
“Well, we’ll see,” retorted Dave. In Miranda’s silence he read a tardy triumph for his views.
That evening he took note of the fact that Kirstie came to supper with no appetite, though every dish of it was tempting and well cooked. Miranda observed this also. Her fresh pang of apprehension on her mother’s account was mixed with a resentful feeling that Dave would interpret every symptom as a confirmation of his own view. She was quite honest in her rejection of that view, for in her eyes flesh food was a kind of subtle poison. But she was too anxious about her mother’s health to commit herself in open hostility to anything, however extreme, which might be suggested in remedy. On this point she was resolved to hold aloof, letting the decision rest between her mother and Dave.
Aroused by the young hunter’s talk, Kirstie was brighter than usual during the meal; but, to her great disappointment, Dave got up to go immediately after supper. He would take no persuasion, but insisted that he had come just to see if she and Miranda were well, and declared that affairs of supreme importance called him straight back to the camp. Kirstie was not convinced. She turned a face of reproach on Miranda, so frankly that the girl was compelled to take her meaning.
“Oh! it isn’t my fault, mother,” she protested, with a little vexed laugh. “I’ve not been doing anything ugly to him. If he goes, it’s just his own obstinacy, for he knows we’d like him to stay as he always does. Let him go if he wants to!”