The young woman looked up from her breakfast. "My!" she said, "Your eyes are pretty. They are such a lovely brown."
"I'll swap hair with you," said Foresta, feeling of her own hair and looking admiringly at the wealth of beautiful black hair on the young woman's head.
"You would cheat yourself. Your hair isn't as long as mine, but it is so black and lovely," said the young woman.
Looking at Foresta from head to foot, plainly but neatly dressed, the young woman remarked, "You are a pretty girl, Foresta—and a good girl," pausing between the former and the latter complimentary reference.
Foresta's kindly face lighted up with joy at the compliment. For some time she had felt, without knowing what it was that she felt, the need of a confidante—some one with a fellow-feeling to whom she could talk.
"Something funny happened once about Bud Harper and——"
"Yourself," said the young woman, with a sweet, knowing look.
"Yes," admitted Foresta with a light laugh, pleased that the young woman was entering so readily into the spirit of the recital. "Bud had a brother Dave that looked just like him," said Foresta. "Almost, I mean," she added, remembering that nobody was to be put on a level with Bud. "Poor Dave is dead now," she said in sad tones, looking the young woman fully in the face as if making a further study of her.
Satisfied with the result of the inspection, Foresta now said in a confidential tone: "Dave died in the penitentiary. He and a white man got in a fight. Dave killed him in self-defense. Dave could have come clear, but it wouldn't have done any good. He would have been lynched. His lawyers advised him to take a twenty years' sentence to satisfy the clamor, and said they were sure they could get him a pardon. All of Dave's friends thought it was better to take his chances with a good governor rather than a mob."
Foresta's eyes now filled with tears. "It did hurt poor Dave so to go to the penitentiary. He was such a good-hearted boy. He died there in about a year and a half. It may be he's better off." Foresta now paused an instant. Shaking off the spell of sadness she said, "But that's not what I started out to tell you."