Page:The New Penelope.djvu/166

 the basket from Chillis, and ordering Willie to carry it, while she walked by the old man's side.

"You have been lookin' at your new house?" he remarked. "You need not try to hide your secret from me. I see it in your face;" and he looked long and wistfully upon the rosy record.

"If you see something in my face, I see something in yours. You have a trouble, a new pain of some kind. Yesterday you looked forty, and radiant; this evening your face is white and drawn by suffering."

"You do observe the old man's face sometimes, then? That other has not quite blotted it out? O, my lovely lady! How sweet an' dainty you look, in that white dress. It does my old eyes good to look at you."

"You are never too ill or sad to make me pretty compliments, Mr. Chillis. Do you know, I think I have grown quite vain since I have had you to flatter me. We constitute a mutual admiration society, I'm sure."

Then she led him into the rose-covered porch, and seated him in the "sleepy-hollow;" brought him a dish of strawberries, and told him to rest while she got ready his supper.

"Rest!" he answered; "I'm not tired. Willie an' I cooked our own supper, too. So you jest put Willie to bed—he's tired enough, I guess—an' then come an' talk to me. That's all I want to-night—is jest to hear the White Rose talk."

While Mrs. Smiley was occupied with Willie—his wants and his prattle—her guest sat motionless, his head on his hand, his elbow resting on the arm of the chair. He had that rare repose of bearing which is understood to be a sign of high breeding, but in him was temperament, or a quietude caught from nature and solitude. It gave a positive charm to his manner, whether animated or depressed; a dignified, introspective, self-possessed carriage, that suited with his powerfully built, symmetrical frame, and