His coat was off, and
Minnie sat near at hand sewing a button on the garment for him, and she
wore that dreamy glaze that comes over women's eyes when they sew for
other people.
From the interior of the house rose and fell the murmur of a number of
voices engaged in a conversation, which, for a time, seemed to consist of
dejected monosyllables; but presently the judge and Minnie heard Helen's
voice, clear, soft, and trembling a little with excitement. She talked
only two or three minutes, but what she said stirred up a great commotion.
All the voices burst forth at once in ejaculations--almost shouts; but
presently they were again subdued and still, except for the single soft
one, which held forth more quietly, but with a deeper agitation, than any
of the others.
"You needn't try to bamboozle me," said the judge in a covert tone to his
daughter, and with a glance at the parlor window, whence now issued the
rumble of Warren Smith's basso. "I tell you that girl would follow John
Harkless to Jericho."
Minnie shook her head mysteriously, and bit a thread with a vague frown.
"Well, why not?" asked the judge crossly.
"Why wouldn't she have him, then?"
"Well, who knows he's asked her yet?"
Minnie screamed derisively at the density of man, "What made him run off
that way, the night he was hurt? Why didn't he come back in the house with
her?"
"Pshaw!"
"Don't you suppose a woman understands?"
"Meaning that you know more about it than I do, I presume," grunted the
old gentleman.
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