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Page 5
The man's warning shake at his wife was fairly portentous.
"I guess so," said she.
"John always wrote that she was a beautiful woman," said Rebecca.
Then the ferry-boat grated on the shore.
John Dent's widow had sent a horse and wagon to meet her sister-in-
law. When the woman and her husband went down the road, on which
Rebecca in the wagon with her trunk soon passed them, she said
reproachfully:
"Seems as if I'd ought to have told her, Thomas."
"Let her find it out herself," replied the man. "Don't you go to
burnin' your fingers in other folks' puddin', Maria."
"Do you s'pose she'll see anything?" asked the woman with a
spasmodic shudder and a terrified roll of her eyes.
"See!" returned her husband with stolid scorn. "Better be sure
there's anything to see."
"Oh, Thomas, they say--"
"Lord, ain't you found out that what they say is mostly lies?"
"But if it should be true, and she's a nervous woman, she might be
scared enough to lose her wits," said his wife, staring uneasily
after Rebecca's erect figure in the wagon disappearing over the
crest of the hilly road.
"Wits that so easy upset ain't worth much," declared the man. "You
keep out of it, Maria."
Rebecca in the meantime rode on in the wagon, beside a flaxen-
headed boy, who looked, to her understanding, not very bright. She
asked him a question, and he paid no attention. She repeated it,
and he responded with a bewildered and incoherent grunt. Then she
let him alone, after making sure that he knew how to drive
straight.
They had traveled about half a mile, passed the village square, and
gone a short distance beyond, when the boy drew up with a sudden
Whoa! before a very prosperous-looking house. It had been one of
the aboriginal cottages of the vicinity, small and white, with a
roof extending on one side over a piazza, and a tiny "L" jutting
out in the rear, on the right hand. Now the cottage was
transformed by dormer windows, a bay window on the piazzaless side,
a carved railing down the front steps, and a modern hard-wood door.
"Is this John Dent's house?" asked Rebecca.
The boy was as sparing of speech as a philosopher. His only
response was in flinging the reins over the horse's back,
stretching out one foot to the shaft, and leaping out of the wagon,
then going around to the rear for the trunk. Rebecca got out and
went toward the house. Its white paint had a new gloss; its blinds
were an immaculate apple green; the lawn was trimmed as smooth as
velvet, and it was dotted with scrupulous groups of hydrangeas and
cannas.
"I always understood that John Dent was well-to-do," Rebecca
reflected comfortably. "I guess Agnes will have considerable.
I've got enough, but it will come in handy for her schooling. She
can have advantages."
The boy dragged the trunk up the fine gravel-walk, but before he
reached the steps leading up to the piazza, for the house stood on
a terrace, the front door opened and a fair, frizzled head of a
very large and handsome woman appeared. She held up her black silk
skirt, disclosing voluminous ruffles of starched embroidery, and
waited for Rebecca. She smiled placidly, her pink, double-chinned
face widened and dimpled, but her blue eyes were wary and
calculating. She extended her hand as Rebecca climbed the steps.
"This is Miss Flint, I suppose," said she.
"Yes, ma'am," replied Rebecca, noticing with bewilderment a curious
expression compounded of fear and defiance on the other's face.
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