"Why not let Lila go for you?" "What! to wait like a servant for the bundle and walk the streets all day--I'd go twenty times first!" "My dear, you needn't envy me," he responded, patting her knotted hand. "I took less courage with me when I stormed my heights." CHAPTER X. Sentimental and Otherwise In the gray dawn Cynthia came softly downstairs and, passing her mother's door on tiptoe, went out into the kitchen to begin preparations for her early breakfast. She wore a severe black alpaca dress, made from a cast-off one of her mother's, and below her white linen collar she had pinned a cameo brooch bearing the head of Minerva, which had once belonged to Aunt Susannah. On the bed upstairs she had left her shawl and bonnet and a pair of carefully mended black silk mitts, for her monthly visits to the little country town were endured with something of the frozen dignity which supported Marie Antoinette in the tumbrel. It was a case where family pride was found more potent than Christian resignation. When she opened the kitchen door, with her arms full of resinous pine from the pile beside the steps, she found that Tucker had risen before her and was fumbling awkwardly in the safe with his single hand. "Why, Uncle Tucker!" she exclaimed in surprise, "what on earth has happened?" Turning his cheerful face upon her, he motioned to a little wooden tobacco box on the bare table. "A nest full of swallows tumbled down my chimney log in the night," he explained, "and they cried so loud I couldn't sleep, so I thought I might as well get up and dig 'em a worm or two. Do you happen to know where a bit of wool is?" Cynthia threw her bundle of kindling-wood on the hearth and stood regarding him with apathetic eyes. "You'd much better wring their necks," she responded indifferently; "but there's a basketful of wool Aunt Polly has just carded in the closet. How in the world did you manage to dress yourself?" "Oh, it's wonderful what one hand can do when it's put to it. Would you mind fastening my collar, by the way, and any buttons that you happen to see loose?" She glanced over him critically, pulling his clothes in place and adjusting a button here and there. "I do hate to see you in this old jean suit," she said; "you used to look so nice in your other clothes." With a laugh he settled his empty sleeve. "Oh, they're good for warm weather," he responded; "and they wash easily, which is something. Think, too, what a waste it would be to dress half a man in a whole suit of broadcloth." "Oh, don't, don't," she protested, on the point of tears, but he smiled and patted her bowed shoulder. "I got over that long ago, honey," he said gently. "I kicked powerful hard with my one foot at first, but the dust I raised wasn't a speck in the face of God Almighty. There, there, we'll have a fine sunrise, and I'm going out to watch it from my old bench--unless you'll find something for a single hand to do." She shook her head, smiling with misty eyes.