Very slowly she put forth her own—­ a hand stained and roughened, but slim and small.  And so I went away through the dripping bush, and down the rocky hill.  A slight sense of fatigue invaded me; and I did not then understand that it came from my steady and sustained efforts to ignore what any eyes could not choose but see—­ this young girl’s beauty—­ yes, despite her sorry mien and her rags—­ a beauty that was fashioned to trouble men; and which was steadily invading my senses whether I would or no.

Walking along the road and springing over the puddles, I thought to myself that it was small wonder such a wench was pestered in a common soldier’s camp.  For she had about her everything to allure the grosser class—­ a something—­ indescribable perhaps—­ but which even such a man as I had become unwillingly aware of.  And I must have been very conscious of it, for it made me restless and vaguely ashamed that I should condescend so far as even to notice it.  More than that, it annoyed me not a little that I should bestow any thought upon this creature at all; but what irritated me most was that Boyd had so demeaned himself as to seek her out behind my back.

When I came to the manor house, it had already begun to rain again; and even as I entered the house, a tempest of rain and wind burst once more over the hills with a violence I had scarcely expected.

Encountering Major Lockwood and Lieutenant Boyd in the hall, I scowled at the latter askance, but remembered my manners, and smoothed my face and told them of my success.

“Rain or no,” said I, “she has promised me to send this Sagamore here tonight.  And I am confident she will keep her word.”

“Which means,” said Boyd, with an unfeigned sigh, that we travel north tomorrow.  Lord!  How sick am I of saddle and nag and the open road.  Your kindly hospitality, Major, has already softened me so that I scarce know how to face the wilderness again.”

And at supper, that evening, Boyd frankly bemoaned his lot, and Mrs. Lockwood condoled with him; but Betsy Hunt turned up her pretty nose, declaring that young men were best off in the woods, which kept them out o’ mischief.  She did not know the woods.

And after supper, as she and my deceitful but handsome lieutenant lingered by the stairs, I heard her repeat it again, utterly refusing to say she was sorry or that she commiserated his desperate lot.  But on her lips hovered a slight and provoking smile, and her eyes were very brilliant under her powdered hair.

All women liked Boyd; none was insensible to his charm.  Handsome, gay, amusing—­ and tender, alas!—­ too often—­ few remained indifferent to this young man, and many there were who found him difficult to forget after he had gone his careless way.  But I was damning him most heartily for the prank he played me.

I sat in the parlour talking to Mrs. Lockwood.  The babies were long since in bed; the elder children now came to make their reverences to their mother and father, and so very dutifully to every guest.  A fat black woman in turban and gold ear-hoops fetched them away; and the house seemed to lose a trifle of its brightness with the children’s going.