Miss Sampson had packed a big basket full of
good things to eat, and I carried this in front of me on the pommel as
we rode. We hitched our horses to the fence and went round to the back
of the house. There was a little porch with a stone flooring, and here
several children were playing. The door stood open. At my knock Mrs.
Hoden bade me come in. Evidently Steele was not there, so I went in with
the girls.
"Mrs. Hoden, I've brought Miss Sampson and her cousin to see you," I
said cheerfully.
The little room was not very light, there being only one window and the
door; but Mrs. Hoden could be seen plainly enough as she lay,
hollow-cheeked and haggard, on a bed. Once she had evidently been a
woman of some comeliness. The ravages of trouble and grief were there to
read in her worn face; it had not, however, any of the hard and bitter
lines that had characterized her husband's.
I wondered, considering that Sampson had ruined Hoden, how Mrs. Hoden
was going to regard the daughter of an enemy.
"So you're Roger Sampson's girl?" queried the woman, with her bright
black eyes fixed on her visitor.
"Yes," replied Miss Sampson, simply. "This is my cousin, Sally Langdon.
We've come to nurse you, take care of the children, help you in any way
you'll let us.
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