"Mighty glad to see you back home, Marse Jack, mighty glad!" said he.
I looked closely at his horses, with that pretended admiration that I
knew would please him, in order to hide my chagrin. There was
embarrassment in it too, for I knew I was under inspection from the eyes
of Eloise.
"I declare, Marse Jack," he went on, "dis sho'ly ain't you, is it? I
declar to goodness if you ain't biggern yo' daddy wuz, and yo'
gran'pa--the ole Jineral." He grew easily loquacious. "When I fust seed
you a-comin' out dat cyar dore, I didn't know you, and yit I sed to
myself, _sholy I've seed dat face--hit 'pears mighty complicated to me
somehow_."
A smothered laugh from Eloise. "That is what I've been trying to say,
Thomas, but couldn't, to save me, think of the right word. Thank you so
much--'_complicated,_' Jack--that's too good!"
I showed plainly that I did not like this from Eloise. Ridicule we may
bear, but not from our beloved. And I had loved Eloise always, but
never so much as now. Then she suddenly broke into a smile, and said in
her sweet sisterly way of old: "Forgive me, Jack--I haven't lost my old
teasing way with you, have I?"
"I don't want you to," I said quietly.
"Well, what do you think of her?" broke in Aunt Lucretia.
"I can't tell you how beautiful I think she is, Aunt Lucretia," said I.
Eloise laughed, and looked dreamily up. How quickly her eyes had
changed from daring to dreams. In her low, even laugh lay four years of
fashionable Washington schooling. In the soft tones of her voice were a
thousand music lessons. In the well-gowned girl before me was training,
the spirit of gentlefolk, centuries of correct pedigrees. She had
always been strong, and with a form as lithe as a young frost-pinched
hickory. How she could ride a horse and handle a gun! Her hair had
been yellowish and flossy, now it was like the distant flush of a
red-top meadow, mower-ripe. I had left her an over-long school girl,
thin and callow, daring, caring for nothing so much as running a risk of
her neck and limbs in trees, and bare-back gallops on any half-broken
colt on the farm. But now--
Aunt Lucretia, watching me, guessed.
"Oh, well, she'll pass, won't she?" she said rather braggartly for her,
I thought. "You'll believe what I kept writing you now, eh? Though you
never referred to it once, not once."
"Oh! Aunt Lucretia," began Eloise protestingly. Even her voice had
changed. It was not the imperative, rollicking, colt-breaking voice of
the school girl I had known four years ago. It was now like a fall of
soft, freestone water over a moss-lined rock bed, purling into a deep
pool below, sand-bordered and waveless.
"Please don't tease him," she began again.
Aunt Lucretia laughed triumphantly: "Oh, never mind. I want to rub it
in on Jack. He needs it curried into him. He hasn't written me a line
to show that he intended to carry out my wishes until I grew positively
uneasy, for fear he'd marry one of those Hessians, whose ancestors
Washington crossed the Delaware to whip that night."
(Hadn't written, I thought. But no one shall ever know what I had
dreamed and hoped in those four years.)
I was looking into Eloise's eyes; she flushed, for I saw she knew my
thoughts.
"You shan't be hard on Jack," she said, taking my part as it seemed to
save herself. "Jack, dear," and she took my hand in hers, her eyes for
the first time flashed with sympathy, "we must do as of old, we must
pool interests, when she is against us we must combine to beat her. And
to prove it I am going to defy her and kiss you, for you've heard her
say that we are betrothed, and this is always the first thing after a
betrothal," and with the old daring in her eyes she looked up at me.
I remember into what a perfect Cupid's bow her hitherto straight lips
curved, and I flushed crimson as my lips met hers. Aunt Lucretia,
seeing this, said with emphatic shame, "Tut--tut, unsanitary and silly!
Get into the surrey, Jack. Thomas, drive these two fools home!"
In my heart I thanked Aunt Lucretia for that tirade. I knew Eloise of
old. She was always on the side of the under dog. For that reason she
had kissed me. Still, with all her pretense I noticed that Aunt
Lucretia had arranged that we should sit together, and had seated
herself in front with Thomas, where she could watch her roan span trot
off.
"Eloise," I whispered, dropping my hand on hers, "is it really you? I
never dreamed you would be so beautiful. I have loved you always,
Little Sister. Don't you love me a little?"
She laughed at my low voice. Then she suddenly grew serious, and said
in a tone that hurt me, "Of course I do, Jack, as your adopted sister.
But don't!" she protested, as I tried to kiss her cheek. "You are
acting so queerly; as if we were really in love!"