With the mountaineer's
deathless instinct for greeting, she was first to speak.
"Howdy," she breathed softly. "I--I was looking for--I got you--"
She fell silent again, still regarding him, and fumbling blindly at the
cover of the basket.
"Well--aren't you lost?" inquired Stoddard with a rather futile
assumption of surprise. He was strangely moved by the direct gaze of
those clear, wide-set gray eyes, under the white brow and the ruffled
coronet of bright hair.
"No," returned Johnnie gently, literally. "You know I said I'd come up
here and get those moccasin flowers for you this morning. This is my
road home, anyhow. I'm not as near lost on it as I am at a loom, down in
the factory."
Stoddard continued to stare at the hand she had laid on the car.
"It'll be an awfully long walk for you," he said at last, choosing his
words with some difficulty. "Won't you get in and let me take you up to
the spring?"
Johnnie laughed softly, exultantly.
"Oh, I picked your flowers before day broke. I'll bet there have been a
dozen boys over from Sunday-school to drink out of that spring before
this time. You wouldn't have had any blooms if I hadn't got up early."
Again she laughed, and, uncovering the orchids, held them up to him.
"These are beauties," he exclaimed with due enthusiasm, yet with a
certain uneasy preoccupation in his manner.
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