"That's a foot-loose woman if ever there was one."
With all her gift of badinage, she was a solitary soul. The men feared
no less than they admired her. They were shy of that wild courage,
fearful to put so dark a mystery to the solution. The women hated her,
backbit and would not make friends, because of the fatal instantaneous
power she wielded to spin men's blood and pitch their souls derelict on
that impassioned current. Who shall put his finger on the source of this
power? There were girls upon girls with eyes as black, cheeks as like
hers as fruit ripened on the same bough, hair as thick and lustrous--yet
at the sound of Caddie Sills's bare footfall eyes shifted and glowed,
and in the imaginations of these men the women of their choice grew pale
as the ashes that fringe a fallen fire.
"She's a perilous woman," muttered the collector of the port. "Sticks in
the slant of a man's eye like the shadow of sin. Ah! there he goes, like
the leaves of autumn."
Samuel Dreed trod the dust of the road with a wonderful swaying of his
body, denominated the Western Ocean roll. He was a mighty man, all were
agreed; not a nose of wax, even for Cad Sills to twist.
"Plump she'll go in his canvas bag, along with his sea boots and his
palm and needle, if she's not precious careful, with her
shillyshallying," said Zinie Shadd.
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