David in his idle way used to wonder what she worried
about and fidgeted over in her sleep. But it was hard to think of her
asleep; it would have been easier to fancy a sleeping weasel.
Nevertheless the boy liked Miss Penelope. Ruth and he had learned while
they were little children, that there was no unkindness in the snapping
of her sharp little black eyes, and that the terrible things she said
were as harmless as heat lightning. Even the little cup-bearers, black,
brown, and yellow, all knew how kind-hearted she was, and did not mind
in the least the most appalling threats uttered by her sweet, soft
voice. She always gave them something before she sent them flying back
to the cabins. Everybody liked her better than the widow Broadnax who
never scolded or meddled and indeed, rarely spoke at all to any one upon
any subject. For the household had long since come to understand that
this lady, like many another of her kind, was silent mainly because she
had nothing to say; and that she never found fault, simply because she
did not care. Indifference like hers often passes for amiability; and
that sort of motionless silence conceals a vacuum quite as often as it
covers a deep.
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