“She’s only twenty-three, that’s why,” returned Miss Hassock. “If she was my age she’d of stopped.”
“Twenty-three? Well, reckon she is—but what’s her age got to do with stoppin’ here to dinner?” demanded Jard.
“All her own clothes got burnt up,” replied Liza. “They weren’t many nor much, but they fitted her to a wish, for she made every stitch herself, outside an’ inside. What she has on this mornin’ belongs to Susan McPhee, who’s near as tall as me an’ bigger round everywheres.”
“I get you,” said Jard. “That’s the woman of her! A queen in one skirt an’ a scart rabbit in another! But she looked all right to me. Didn’t she look all right, Mr. Vane?”
“Very charming, I thought,” replied Vane.
“Better’n you expected, hey?”
“Yes. I had no idea, no suspicion, of the truth.”
“What did you cal’late this Joe was, anyhow?”
“A stable-boy, or something of that sort. A quite natural mistake, under the circumstances.”
“It don’t sound to me like a mistake a gentleman would make. The prettiest girl on this river—the prettiest girl I ever see—that’s Joe Hinch; an’ you grab her out of bed an’ pass her through the window an’ think she’s a stable-boy!”