"It's full of thorns, like your love," he said ruefully, as he picked
the sharp points out of his fingers.
"'Faithful are the wounds of a friend,'" returned the girl. "See
Psalms, xxvii: 6."
"Take care of my cotton press, Graciella; I'll come in to-morrow
evening and work on it some more. I'll bring some cotton along to try
it with."
"You'll probably find some excuse--you always do."
"Don't you want me to come?" he asked with a trace of resentment. "I
can stay away, if you don't."
"Oh, you come so often that I--I suppose I'd miss you, if you didn't!
One must have some company, and half a loaf is better than no bread."
He went on down the hill, turning at the corner for a lingering
backward look at his tyrant. Graciella, bending her head over the
wall, followed his movements with a swift tenderness in her sparkling
brown eyes.
"I love him better than anything on earth," she sighed, "but it would
never do to tell him so. He'd get so conceited that I couldn't manage
him any longer, and so lazy that he'd never exert himself. I must get
away from this town before I'm old and gray--I'll be seventeen next
week, and an old maid in next to no time--and Ben must take me away.
But I must be his inspiration; he'd never do it by himself. I'll go
now and talk to that dear old Colonel French about the North; I can
learn a great deal from him. And he doesn't look so old either," she
mused, as she went back up the walk to where the colonel sat on the
piazza talking to the other ladies.
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