"I hope he was a good husband."
"Nobody has seen him, he was ordered away at
once. But she is very proud of him. And the baby is a darling. Just beginning to walk and talk."
"Stop a minute, Jefferson, while I speak to them."
Mr. Flippin pulled up his fat horse. He was black-haired, ruddy, and wide of girth. "Well, well," he said, with a big laugh, "it is cert'n'y good to see you."
Mary Flippin was slender and delicate and her eyes were blue. Her hair was thick and dark. There was Scotch-Irish blood in the Flippins, and Mary's charm was in that of duskiness of hair and blueness of eye. "Oh, Randy Paine," she said, with her cheeks flaming, "when did you get back?"
"Ten minutes ago. Mary, if you'll hand me that corking kid, I'll kiss her."
Fiddle was handed over. She was rosy and round with her mother's blue eyes. She wore a little buttoned hat of white piqué, with strings tied under her chin.
"So," said Randy, after a moist kiss, "you are Fiddle-dee-dee?"
"Ess——"