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"And what's her name, ma'am?"
"Mary Isabel, but I wish her to be called Isabel."
"Isabel! A beautiful name too! Fit for a angel, ma'am. And she _is_ a
little angel, bless her! Such rosy cheeks! Such a ducky little mouth!
Such blue eyes--blue as the bluebells in the cemet'ry. She's as pretty
as a waxwork, she really is, and any woman in the world might be proud
to nurse her."
A young mother is such a weakling that praise of her child (however
crude) acts like a charm on her, and in spite of myself I was beginning
to feel more at ease, when Mrs. Oliver's husband came downstairs.
He was a short, thick-set man of about thirty-five, with a square chin,
a very thick neck and a close-cropped red bullet head, and he was in his
stocking feet and shirt-sleeves as if he had been dressing to go out for
the evening.
I remember that it flashed upon me--I don't know why--that he had seen
me from the window of the room upstairs, driving up in the old man's
four-wheeler, and had drawn from that innocent circumstance certain
deductions about my character and my capacity to pay.


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