CHAPTER II

WHICH, BEING THE SECOND CHAPTER, VERY PROPERLY INTRODUCES THE GODDESS

She wore a faded jumper, a short, plaid skirt (also faded) and a pair of
enormous rubber-boots . . . moreover she was scowling. . . .

But what o’ that? The eyes of Keith, Dallas, Chisholm saw but the lissom
beauty of that shapely body—nay, in puckered brow, deep eyes and jut of
resolute chin he sensed something of the strong, brave soul of her . . .
and instantly recognizing her for the Goddess of his Destiny, he stood
mute and awed, drinking in (as it were) her every motion as she stood on
the muddy verge of miry, little pool vainly endeavouring to drive a
supremely nobby stake with a too-ponderous hammer grasped close beneath
the head; once she smote—the stake wobbled; twice she smote—the stake
fell into the pool with a splash.

“Oh—dash the thing!” panted the Goddess. . . . And then the Small
Person spoke:

“Jo dear, I’ve been and found myself a husbant—here he is.”

The Goddess turned swiftly, dropped the hammer into the mud, and,
meeting Dallas’s rapt gaze, flushed, glanced down instinctively at her
tremendous boots and bit her rosy under-lip.

“Do you s’pose he’ll do?” queried the Small Person, “I mean if he grows
nice and rich. Please look at him, Jo.”

The Goddess looked again and saw a tall, slim, shabby young man with
eyes vaguely troubled and a general shrinking air that seemed somehow in
odd contrast to the square set of his jaw. He saw a face deep-eyed,
vivid of mouth and framed in bronze-gold hair cut close, sleek and
shining like a golden helmet. And in this fateful moment she forgot even
her vasty rubber-boots and he, forgetting his diffidence and the dark
and dreadful cause of it, stepped forward, took up the muddy hammer and
drove the stake deep and firm.

“Will that do?” he inquired.

“Splendidly!” she answered.

“An’ his name’s Dal!” explained the Small Personage. “An’ he’s a lone,
lorn soul like old Jesse Blee. And we bofe want our tea, please.” Here,
glancing from the child to the man, our Goddess flushed for no reason in
the world and, aware of this, blushed furiously and stamped her foot
petulantly therefore, became aware of her rubber-boots and, glancing
askance at Dallas, found him regarding them also . . . and then a bell
tinkled faintly.

“That’s tea!” cried the Small Person joyously.

“And I . . . I bid you . . . good afternoon!” said Dallas with a
remarkable awkwardness, and his gaze still abased to the rubber-boots.

“They . . . they belong to Tom Merry!” explained the Goddess.

“I . . . er . . . beg pardon?”

“These—atrocities!”

“Oh yes . . . the gum-boots, of course!” he nodded. “They . . . don’t
seem to fit——”

“Of course they don’t!”

“Yes I . . . I kind of noticed they didn’t,” he stammered.

“How frightfully clever of you!” she retorted.

“That means you think I’m a sure-enough gump,” he sighed, “and I guess
you’re right. . . . Good-bye——”

“Oh!” cried the Small Person. “But you can’t go and no tea! Now can he,
Jo? ’Sides he hasn’t got any home to go to, he told me so his very own
self. So make him stay to tea, Jodear—jest to please me, please!”

Hat in hand Dallas turned to be gone while Josepha, this Goddess of his
Destiny, stood mute and, for once, completely at a loss. . . . But . . .
glancing down again at the “atrocities,” these so detestable
rubber-boots, she remembered a certain pair of dainty shoes carefully
treed within doors, and her capable mind was made up forthwith:

“Of course you will stay to tea—if you care to, Mr. . . . Mr. . . . ?”

“My name is . . . Dallas,” he answered in his halting fashion, “Dallas
Keith and . . . and I . . . I’d better go . . . hadn’t I?” he inquired,
voice and eyes at their wistfullest.

“Well,” answered Josepha, smiling suddenly, “tea won’t take long and
. . . there are lots more stakes I want driven——”

“Tea, miss!” cried a voice at this moment. “Tea be brewed an’ a-gettin’
cold an’ my scones is growin’ like lead—rapid. Tea, Miss Josepha!”

“We’re coming, Sarah,” called her mistress in sweet rich contralto. “Set
another cup and saucer, please. . . . And Mr. Dallas, my name is Josepha
Dare.”

“That sure sounds too good to be true!” said he.

“What does?”

“Your name.”

“Oh, you mean ‘Josepha’—it doesn’t suit me a little bit. I’m too
matter-of-fact——”

“Are you?” he questioned.

“Yes indeed,” she answered, but here, meeting his grave and wistful
regard, she blushed, and sped into the cottage, there to kick off those
hateful rubber enormities.