Steve hesitated, and looked about him.
“I shall be wretched if you go out.” Her face and voice proved the truth of her assertion.
“I must go. I am already soaking wet; but I’ll come back directly.” His voice was cheerful, and before Ruth could beg him again, with a sign to the old woman he was gone, and had pulled the door close to behind him.
“Heah, he say I is to dry you,” said the old Mammy, and she set a chair before the fire and gently but firmly put Ruth in it, and proceeded to feel her shoes and clothing. “Dat’s my young master—my chile,” she said, with pride, and in answer to Ruth’s expostulations. “You’re ’bliged to do what he say, you know. He’ll be back torectly.”
Ruth felt that the only way to induce Captain Allen to come in out of the storm was to get dried as quickly as possible; so she set to work to help the old woman. Steve did not come back directly, however, nor for some time, and not until Ruth sent him word that she was dry, and he must come in or she would go out. Then he entered, laughing at the idea that a rain meant anything to him.
“Why, I am an old soldier. I have slept in such a rain as that, night after night, and as soundly as a baby. I enjoy it.” His face, as he looked at Ruth sitting before the fire, showed that he enjoyed something. And as the girl sat there, her long hair down, her eyes filled with solicitude, and the bright firelight from the blazing, resinous pine shining on her and lighting up the dingy little room, she made a picture to enjoy.
Old Peggy, bending over her and ministering to her with pleased officiousness, caught something of the feeling. A gleam of shrewdness had come into her sharp, black eyes.
“Marse Steve, is dis your lady?” she asked, suddenly, with an admiring look at Ruth, whose cheeks flamed.
“No—not—” Steve did not finish the sentence. “What made you think so?” He looked very pleased.
“She so consarned about you. She certainly is pretty,” she said, simply.