“After all, it doesn’t matter. The poor fellow is, doubtless, used to richer cordials, but it’s hot and strong and will do the work. You, Angelique, make us a pot of your best coffee, and swing round that dinner-pot. The man is almost starved, and I’m on the road to follow him. How about you, Margot?”
“I? Oh!—I guess I’m hungry—I will be—see! He’s swallowing it—fast. Give me that bigger spoon, Angel—quick!”
“What would you? Scald the creature’s throat? So he isn’t dead, after all. Well, he needn’t have made a body think so, he needn’t. There, Margot! you’ve messed him with the black stuff!”
Indignantly brushing the child aside, the woman seized the cup and deftly administered its entire contents. The stranger had not yet opened his eyes, but accepted the warm liquid mechanically, and his nurse hurried to fill a bowl with the broth of the stew in the kettle. This, in turn, was taken from her by Margot, who jealously exclaimed:
“He’s mine. I heard him first. I found him first; let me be the first he sees. Dish up the supper, please, and set my uncle’s place.”
So, when a moment later, having been nearly choked by the more substantial food forced into his mouth, the guest opened his eyes, they beheld the eager face of a brown-skinned, fair-haired girl very close to his and heard her joyous cry:
“He sees me! he sees everything! he’s getting well already!”
He had never seen anybody like her. Her hair was as abundant as a mantle and rippled over her shoulders like spun gold. So it looked in the lamplight. In fact, it had never been bound nor covered, and what in a different social condition might have been much darker, had in this outdoor life become bleached almost white. The weather which had whitened the hair had tanned the skin to bronze, making the blue eyes more vivid by contrast and the red lips redder. These were smiling now, over well-kept teeth, and there was about the whole bearing of the maid something suggestive of the woodland in which she had been reared.
Purity, honesty, freedom—all spoke in every motion and tone, and, to this observer, at least, seemed better than any beauty. Presently, he was able to push her too-willing hand gently away and to say:
“Not quite so fast, please.”