While she stood there, her shoulders drooping, her eyes searching my aunt's face, she still found time to shoot a glance like a flaming signal to Johnny Deutra, staring at her agape. I surprised the glance, and so did my aunt Josephine, who must have known she was in for nothing but trouble. And so was Johnny Deutra, for from that first glance of Deolda's that dared him, love laid its heavy hand on his young shoulders.
"What's your name, dear?" my aunt asked.
"Deolda Costa," said she.
"Oh, you're one-armed Manel's girl. I don't remember seeing you about lately."
"I been working to New Bedford. My father an' mother both died. I came up for the funeral. I—don't want to go back to the mills—" Then sudden fury flamed in her. "I hate the men there!" she cried. "I'd drown before I'd go back!"
"There, there, dear," my aunt soothed her. "You ain't going back—you're going to work for Auntie Kingsbury."
That was the way Deolda had. She never gave one any chance for an illusion about her, for there was handsome Johnny Deutra still hanging round the gate watching Deolda, and she already held my aunt's heart in her slender hand.
My aunt went around muttering, "One-armed Manel's girl!" She appealed to me: "She's got to live somewhere, hasn't she?"
I imagine that my aunt excused herself for deliberately, running into foul weather by telling herself that Deolda Was her "lot," something the Lord had sent her to take care of.
"Who was one-armed Manel?" I asked, tagging after my aunt.