I was going
my full length--telling her what fun the mill girls were, and trying to
do the agreeable--when I found out."
"Found out what?" inquired Stoddard. "That she was not a lady?"
"Aw, come off," laughed Conroy. "You make a joke of everything."
"I knew that she was a weaver in the mill," said Stoddard quietly.
Conroy glanced half wistfully over his shoulder in the direction where
Johnnie had vanished.
"She's a good-looker all right," he said thoughtfully. "And smile--when
that girl smiles and turns those eyes on you--by George! if she was
taken to New York and put through one of those finishing schools she'd
make a sensation in the swagger set."
Stoddard nodded gravely. He had not Conroy's faith in the fashionable
finishing school; but what he lacked there, he made up in conviction as
to Johnnie's deserts and abilities.
"There she comes now," said Conroy, as the door swung open to admit a
couple of girls with trays of coffee cups. "She walks mighty well. I
wonder where a girl like that learned to carry herself so finely. By
George, she _is_ a good-looker! She's got 'em all beaten; if she was
only--. Queer about the accidents of birth, isn't it? Now, what would
you say, in her heredity, makes a common girl like that step and look
like a queen?"
Gray Stoddard's face relaxed. A hint of his quizzical, inscrutable smile
was upon it as he answered.
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