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"Everybody always has been mighty good to me all my life," Laurella Himes was saying to Mandy, Beulah and the others. "I reckon they always will. Uncle Pros he just does for me like he was my daddy, and my children always waited on me. Johnnie's the best gal that ever was, ef she does have some quare notions."
"Well, if he can look that way I reckon I can speak of it," returned Laurella, with some reason. "I want you to promise never to name it again, even to me," said Johnnie solemnly, as they came to the steps of the big lead-coloured house. "You surely wouldn't say such a thing to any one else. I wish you'd forget it yourself."
Laurella lay all day and far into the night on her pallet of quilts before the big fire in the front room, spent, inert, staring at the ceiling, entertaining God knows what guests of terror and remorse. Nothing distressing must be brought to her. Coming home from work once at dusk, Johnnie found the two little girls on the porch, Deanie crying and Lissy trying to comfort her.
He had brought a paper of coarse, cheap candy for Deanie, but the child was asleep. The offering was quite as acceptable to Laurella, and she nibbled a stick as she listened to him.
And sighingly yet light-heartedly, for with Laurella Consadine and Johnnie there was always the quaint suggestion of a little girl with a doll quite too big for her the mother let her go.
There, for the first time, had the painter caught sight of Laurella, who, with her pitcher on her head, had passed by without taking any notice of him. The Neapolitan, struck by her appearance, stood still and gazed after her, not heeding that he was standing in the very midst of the game, which, with two steps, he might have cleared.
It was almost large enough for that, and the great load of hickory logs which Himes hauled into the yard from the neighbouring mountain-side was cut to length. Fire was kindled in the new chimney; it drew perfectly; and Pap himself carried Laurella in his arms and laid her on some quilts beside the hearthstone, demanding eagerly, "Thar now don't that make you feel better?" "Uh-huh."
And turn your thoughts from such distressing pictures, Laurella; there may be better days in store for you, which will make you forget the past." "Never shall I forget that!" she said, and shuddered. "And you must know, padre, it is the reason why I have resolved to remain unmarried. I never will be subject to a man, who may beat and then caress me.
Young folks are all alike; for one little maiden of eighteen they will do more than for ten of us reverend fathers. Nay, no excuse, Tonino. It is the Lord's own doing, that like and like should hold together." Meantime Laurella had stepped in, and seated herself beside the padre, first putting away Antonio's jacket without a word.
Laurella Consadine, commonly called in mountain fashion by her maiden name of Laurella Passmore, scrambled to her feet and tossed the dark curls out of her eyes. "Aw law huh!" she returned carelessly. "We'll get along; we always have. How do you reckon I made out before you was born, you great big somebody? What's the matter with you? Did you fail to borry a frock for the dance over at Rainy Gap?
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