To John Cardigan, however, Moira was a ministering
angel. Gradually she relieved Bryce of the care of the old man. She
made a cushion for his easy-chair in the office; she read the papers
to him, and the correspondence, and discussed with him the receipt
and delivery of orders, the movements of the lumber-fleet, the
comedies and tragedies of his people, which had become to him matters
of the utmost importance. She brushed his hair, dusted his hat, and
crowned him with it when he left the office at nightfall, and
whenever Bryce was absent in the woods or in San Francisco, it fell
to her lot to lead the old man to and from the house on the hill. To
his starved heart her sweet womanly attentions were tremendously
welcome, and gradually he formed the habit of speaking of her, half
tenderly, half jokingly, as "my girl."
Bryce had been absent in San Francisco for ten days. He had planned
to stay three weeks, but finding his business consummated in less
time, he returned to Sequoia unexpectedly. Moira was standing at the
tall bookkeeping desk, her beautiful dark head bent over the ledger,
when he entered the office and set his suitcase in the corner.
"Is that you, Mr. Bryce?" she queried.
"The identical individual, Moira. How did you guess it was I?"
She looked up at him then, and her wonderful dark eyes lighted with a
flame Bryce had not seen in them heretofore.
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