"You're kind, Dannie," said she. "Ay, God's sake, lad! you're wondrous
kind--t' me."
My tutor tipped the sad little face, as though by right and propriety
admitted long ago, and for a moment looked unabashed into Judith's
eyes--an engaging glance, it seemed, for Judith was left unresisting
and untroubled by it. They were eyes, now, speaking anxious fear and
weariness and motherly concern, the brows drawn, the tragic little
shadows, lying below, very wide and blue.
"You are a pretty child," said my tutor, presently; "you have very
beautiful eyes, have you not? But you knew it long ago, of course," he
added, smiling in a way most captivating, "didn't you?"
"No, sir."
I remember the day--the mist and wind and clamoring sea and solemn
hills, the dour, ill-tempered world wherein we were, our days as grass
(saith the psalmist). Ay, an' 'tis so. I remember the day: the wet
moss underfoot; the cold wind, blowing as it listed; the petulant sea,
wreaking an ancient enmity, old and to continue beyond our span of
feeling; the great hills of Twin Islands hid in mist, but yet watching
us; the clammy fog embracing us, three young, unknowing souls. I shall
not forget--cannot forget--the moment of that first meeting of the
maid Judith with John Cather. 'Twas a sombre day, as he had said--ay,
a troubled sea, a gray, cold, sodden earth!
"And has nobody told you that you were pretty?" my tutor ran on, in
pleasant banter.
She would not answer; but shyly, in sweet self-consciousness, looked
down.
"No?" he insisted.
She was too shy of him to say.
"Not even one?" he persisted, tipping up the blushing little face.
"Not even one?"