There was a brave breakfast cooking, and the fire was a red, shimmering slope of wood ash when Mr. Jennifer came stumping down the stairs to pause and stare in astonishment at Barbara as he opened the stairway door. She was lying back in the chair with her eyes open, but with no real soul in them as yet, her hands hanging over the chair-rail, her black hair bathing her face.
Mr. Jennifer came in softly and discreetly, and stood about three yards from her, fingering the side seam of his breeches. Then he made a bob and waited, and then a second bob, with a stolid, persistent desire to be proper in the matter of politeness. But though Barbara hardly had sight or hearing for anything as yet, Mr. Jennifer stood stolidly to his convictions, and scraped his feet to make the lady look at him.
Mrs. Winnie caught him at this bobbing and scraping, with a puzzled stare in his eyes and his thick head full of kindness. He glanced at his wife with extreme cunning, and gave her a whisper behind his hands.
“Come ye here, Winnie. What be t’ lady a-staring at? Here be I makin’ a knee to her—”
“Get out with you, you great fool!”
She gave him a cuff across the ear. But Mr. Jennifer still gazed at Barbara.
“She be purty enough. But what be a-terrifying me—be—why she won’t blink them eyes o’ hers.”
“Get along with you, Chris Jennifer, you great booby! Can’t you see she be dazed with t’ cold? And will she be thanking you for standing there and staring like a cow? Go and help the gentleman with his horse.”
“And did them come all on one horse, my dear?”
Mrs. Winnie looked at him, and Mr. Jennifer went.