She made me think
of dancing women I have heard of, and music, and of soft, starlit
nights, velvet black. She was more foreign than anything I had ever seen
and she meant to me what she did to plenty of others--romance. She must
have meant it to my aunt, sick as she was and needing a hired girl. So
when Deolda asked, in that soft way of hers:
"Shall I stay?"
"Yes," answered my aunt, reluctantly, her eyes on the girl's lovely
mouth.
While she stood there, her shoulders drooping, her eyes searching my
aunt's face, she still found time to shoot a glance like a flaming
signal to Johnny Deutra, staring at her agape. I surprised the glance,
and so did my aunt Josephine, who must have known she was in for nothing
but trouble. And so was Johnny Deutra, for from that first glance of
Deolda's that dared him, love laid its heavy hand on his young
shoulders.
"What's your name, dear?" my aunt asked.
"Deolda Costa," said she.
"Oh, you're one-armed Manel's girl. I don't remember seeing you about
lately."
"I been working to New Bedford. My father an' mother both died. I came
up for the funeral. I--don't want to go back to the mills--" Then sudden
fury flamed in her. "I hate the men there!" she cried. "I'd drown before
I'd go back!"
"There, there, dear," my aunt soothed her.
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