"Voluble, verbal gratitude is not an uncommon thing," she answered. "I
am going to ask far more than that of you. I've kept her picture
always on my table, Stephen, ever since we found it; and I should miss
it greatly if I were not to see it often. Do you mind leaving it here,
in your room upstairs? I am going to ask that of you, and if you don't
mind doing so, then I--I would suggest, too, that you might kiss
the--the first 'dressed up lady you ever did git to know,' who must bid
you good-night now."
The boyish hesitation with which he saluted Miss Sarah's faded pink
cheek was far more delicately flattering than all the effusion in the
world could ever have been. After she had left them alone Steve turned
and gazed at Caleb, wonder in his face.
"I've never forgotten the way she shook hands with me, that day," he
said slowly. "I wondered then if there could be other women with
voices just as kind. And I--I'm wondering now."
Caleb smiled.
"I've often speculated on that myself, Steve," he remarked. "And I
don't know. I don't know! Sarah is pretty human--even for a Baptist,
eh?"
They both laughed over that rainy day which the words recalled; they
sat and talked and smoked, but no matter what trend the conversation
took, Caleb failed to mention the document or the tax receipts which he
had found ten years before in Old Tom's tin box.
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