She stooped a little and lovingly touched Flukey's shoulder, looking first at Ann, then at Horace. Straightening up, she burst out: "Mister, if ye're goin' to have me pinched for stealin', do it quick before my brother knows about it, and--I'd ruther go to prison in Fluke's pants--please!"
Still the master of the house did not speak. Flea was filled with suspicion, and thought she divined the cause of his quietness and smile. He was ridiculing her dress, perhaps making sport of the way her curls were arranged. She thrust one hand upward and tumbled the mass of hair into disorder.
"Yer woman put these togs onto me," she said, "and I feel like an old guy--dressed up this way!"
Anger forced tears into her eyes, and her two small brown hands clenched under the hanging lace at her wrists. Her words and the spontaneous action deepened the expression on the face of the silent man, and she cried out again: "Ye needn't be making fun of me, Mister! I can't help how I look."
But a feverish exclamation from the sick boy so increased her anxiety for him that her own troubles were overwhelmed. She was rendered unmindful that Ann had softly called her name; nor did she realize that Shellington had spoken quietly to her.
She flung out her hands in eloquent appeal.
"Oh, I thank ye for covering my brother up so warm! He didn't need no sheets nor piller-slips; but his bones did need the blankets--sure. I say as how he'd thank ye, too, if he weren't offen his head."
Horace gently took the girl's hands in his, and Flea lowered her sun-browned face.
"I know he would, child," he said in moved tones. "He's more than welcome to all we can do--and you are to stay here, too, little girl."
Horace had done what Ann had been unable to do. The words had soothed the squatter girl, and the savage young heart was softened. The long, dreary country marches were over; the cold nights and bare fields were things of the past. For Flukey, there were tender hands that would ease his pain; for her, a home unmenaced by Lem. She had looked her last upon horrors that had bound her to a life she hated.
Shellington spoke to her.
"Look at me, child!" said he. "I want to tell you what the doctor said."
She lifted an anxious gaze filled with the emotion of a woman's soul. It was her dawning womanhood that Horace saw, and toward it his manhood was unconsciously drawn.