"N-ow, then—ye aughtta have a h-orse. Yer pappy should see to't."
His gray eyes, then almost blue against the loose brown skin of his face, held me speechless.
"N-ow I gotta horse—a fine horse fur a boy. Ye might ride her—like to? Then, if yer pappy wanted, he cou'd buy her fur ye?"
I looked at him in doubt.
"Yes, he could. Yer pappy has more money than anyone hereabouts, and it ain't right—I tell you, it ain't right to have a little boy like you and not give him—eve-ry thing he wants!"
His last words ended in that slow climactic inflection that made whatever he said so indisputable. It was not unlike the minister's voice, I thought; and, my glance chancing to fall on the opened Bible, I was about to question him, when the door was pushed back hurriedly, admitting my father's lank, wiry figure along with a stream of chilling air.
"G-ood morning, Mr. Breighton—a f-ine morning."
"Morning, Darton," said my father crisply. "Can I go directly upstairs?"
"No hurry n-ow, Doctor. It's all over. Mrs. Carn's been here all morning and—"
It was at this moment that Mrs. Carn, her eyelids red from weeping, an old bumpy, red worsted shawl over her head, came nervously into the room; and, without so much as even a nod to any of us, edged quicky out of the front door.