"Oh, no, Miss, no," Susan answered quickly and warmly. And she brushed my hair harder than ever.
Looking at her once more in the glass, I saw that she was speaking the truth. Her face was still the playground of contending emotions, but, through her pretty, blue eyes, her spirit gazed out radiantly at the genial tourney. Altogether, Susan looked bewitching. In her country print, and with her yellow hair and rosy-red cheeks, she was just the sort of sweet, shy, rustic English beauty to fall head over ears in love with at first sight. The truth blazed upon me like a flash of lightning.
It was a few moments before I found my tongue. That some young man or other should begin to plague my bright-eyed Susan was the most natural thing in the world; and yet I had no more taken such a thing into my calculations than I had speculated as to what I should do if a burglar broke in by night and walked off with my silver combs and brushes. At last I said, rather lamely and stiffly:
"At any rate, Susan, you've got something on your mind."
"What is it?" I asked. "Or rather, who is it?"
Susan's breath came and went more quickly. But still she did not answer.
I turned over the possibilities in my mind, and then put a question pointblank.
"Oh, no, Miss, not Gibson." Her response was prompt, decisive, almost reproachful.
"I'm rather sorry," I said. "Gibson's a thoroughly decent, steady young fellow, and he will get on. I hope it's nobody worse than Gibson."
"Oh, no, Miss," said Susan swiftly and softly, "Not worse than Gibson."
As she did not offer the swain's name, or an account of his person, or any further information whatsoever, I sat dumb and began to feel a bit sulky. Apart from my personal loss of the best maid a woman ever had, I was aggrieved on Susan's own account. No doubt some small farmer's son had turned her silly little head and won her unguarded little heart. And after the rude delights of a rural courtship, my neat-handed, dainty pink-and-white Susan would have to settle down for forty years to drudge among kine and swine and turnips, and, most likely, a pack of lusty and highly dislikable children. The prospect so revolted me that I decided to do my whole duty.
"Have you told your people--your relations--about all this?"