"Take your time," said he, and threw one arm up over the mantel-shelf, and stood as if it were easier for him than to sit, and indeed it might have been so, for from his stalking of woods and long motionless watches at the lair of game, he had had good opportunities to accustom himself to rest at ease upon his feet.
Jerome might have spoken sooner had the Squire moved away from before him and taken his eyes from his face, for sometimes too ardent attention becomes a citadel for storming to a young and modest soul.
However, at last he turned his own head aside, and his black eyes from the Squire's keen blue eyes, and would then have spoken had not the door opened suddenly and little Lucina come in on a run and stopped short a minute with timid finger to her mouth, and eyes as innocently surprised as a little rabbit's.
Lucina, being unhooded to-day, showed all her shower of shining yellow curls, which covered her little shoulders and fell to her childish waist.

Her fat white neck and dimpled arms were bare and gleaming through the curls, and she wore a lace-trimmed pinafore, and a frock of soft blue wool scalloped with silk around the hem, revealing below the finest starched pantalets, and little morocco shoes.
Squire Eben laughed fondly, to see her start and hesitate, as a man will laugh at the pretty tricks of one he loves.

"Come here, Pretty," he cried.

"There's nothing for you to be afraid of.

This is only poor little Jerome Edwards.