Miss Milly's mind was instantly made up.I think I have already intimated, that, under the stimulus of excitement, she was not wanting in courage; and as she quietly resumed her gloves, hat, and duster, she was not, perhaps, exactly the young person that it would be entirely safe for the timid, embarrassed, or inexperienced of my sex to meet alone.She shut down the piano; and having carefully reclosed all the windows and doors, and restored the house to its former desolate condition, she stepped from the veranda, and proceeded directly to the cabin of the unintellectual Hawkins, that reared its adobe chimney above the umbrage a quarter of a mile below.
The door opened instantly to her impulsive knock, and the "Fool of Five Forks" stood before her.Miss Milly had never before seen the man designated by this infelicitous title; and as he stepped backward, in half courtesy and half astonishment, she was, for the moment, disconcerted.He was tall, finely formed, and dark-bearded.Above cheeks a little hollowed by care and ill-health shone a pair of hazel eyes, very large, very gentle, but inexpressibly sad and mournful.This was certainly not the kind of man Miss Milly had expected to see; yet, after her first embarrassment had passed, the very circumstance, oddly enough, added to her indignation, and stung her wounded pride still more deeply.Nevertheless, the arch hypocrite instantly changed her tactics with the swift intuition of her sex.
"I have come," she said with a dazzling smile, infinitely more dangerous than her former dignified severity,--"I have come to ask your pardon for a great liberty I have just taken.I believe the new house above us on the hill is yours.I was so much pleased with its exterior, that I left my friends for a moment below here,"she continued artfully, with a slight wave of the hand, as if indicating a band of fearless Amazons without, and waiting to avenge any possible insult offered to one of their number, "and ventured to enter it.Finding it unoccupied, as I had been told, Iam afraid I had the audacity to sit down and amuse myself for a few moments at the piano, while waiting for my friends."Hawkins raised his beautiful eyes to hers.He saw a very pretty girl, with frank gray eyes glistening with excitement, with two red, slightly freckled cheeks glowing a little under his eyes, with a short scarlet upper-lip turned back, like a rose-leaf, over a little line of white teeth, as she breathed somewhat hurriedly in her nervous excitement.He saw all this calmly, quietly, and, save for the natural uneasiness of a shy, reticent man, I fear without a quickening of his pulse.
"I knowed it," he said simply."I heerd ye as I kem up."Miss Milly was furious at his grammar, his dialect, his coolness, and, still more, at the suspicion that he was an active member of her in visible elaque.
"Ah!" she said, still smiling."Then I think I heard YOU"--"I reckon not," he interrupted gravely."I didn't stay long.Ifound the boys hanging round the house, and I allowed at first I'd go in and kinder warn you; but they promised to keep still: and you looked so comfortable, and wrapped up in your music, that I hadn't the heart to disturb you, and kem away.I hope," he added earnestly, "they didn't let on ez they heerd you.They ain't a bad lot,--them Blazin' Star boys--though they're a little hard at times.But they'd no more hurt ye then they would a--a--a cat!"continued Mr.Hawkins, blushing with a faint apprehension of the inelegance of his simile.
"No, no!" said Miss Milly, feeling suddenly very angry with herself, the "Fool," and the entire male population of Five Forks.
"No! I have behaved foolishly, I suppose--and, if they HAD, it would have served me right.But I only wanted to apologize to you.
You'll find every thing as you left it.Good-day!"She turned to go.Mr.Hawkins began to feel embarrassed."I'd have asked ye to sit down," he said finally, "if it hed been a place fit for a lady.I oughter done so, enny way.I don't know what kept me from it.But I ain't well, miss.Times I get a sort o' dumb ager,--it's the ditches, I think, miss,--and I don't seem to hev my wits about me."Instantly Miss Arnot was all sympathy: her quick woman's heart was touched.
"Can I--can any thing be done?" she asked more timidly than she had before spoken.
"No--not onless ye remember suthin' about these pills." He exhibited a box containing about half a dozen."I forget the direction--I don't seem to remember much, any way, these times.
They're 'Jones's Vegetable Compound.' If ye've ever took 'em, ye'll remember whether the reg'lar dose is eight.They ain't but six here.But perhaps ye never tuk any," he added deprecatingly.
"No," said Miss Milly curtly.She had usually a keen sense of the ludicrous; but somehow Mr.Hawkins's eccentricity only pained her.
"Will you let me see you to the foot of the hill?" he said again, after another embarrassing pause.
Miss Arnot felt instantly that such an act would condone her trespass in the eyes of the world.She might meet some of her invisible admirers, or even her companions; and, with all her erratic impulses, she was, nevertheless, a woman, and did not entirely despise the verdict of conventionality.She smiled sweetly, and assented; and in another moment the two were lost in the shadows of the wood.