Bone, going in, had left the door ajar, and the red firelight shone out
brightly on her, where she was stooping. Nature had given her a body
white, strong, and womanly,--broad, soft shoulders, for instance, hands
slight and nervous, dark, slow eyes. The Devil never would have had the
courage to tempt Eve, if she had looked at him with eyes as tender and
honest as Dode Scofield's.

Yet, although she had so many friends, she impressed you as being a shy
home-woman. That was the reason her father did not offer to take her to
the meeting, though half the women in the neighborhood would be there.

"She a'n't smart, my Dode," he used to say,--"'s got no public sperrit."

He said as much to young Gaunt, the Methodist preacher, that very day,
knowing that he thought of the girl as a wife, and wishing to be honest
as to her weaknesses and heresies. For Dode, being the only creature in
the United States who thought she came into the world to learn and not
to teach, had an odd habit of trying to pick the good lesson out of
everybody: the Yankees, the Rebels, the Devil himself, she thought, must
have some purpose of good, if she could only get at it. God's creatures
alike. She durst not bring against the foul fiend himself a "railing
accusation," being as timid in judging evil as were her Master and the
archangel Michael. An old-fashioned timidity, of course: people thought
Dode a time-server, or "a bit daft."

"She don't take sides sharp in this war," her father said to Gaunt, "my
little girl; 'n fact, she isn't keen till put her soul intill anythin'
but lovin'. She's a pore Democrat, David, an' not a strong
Methody,--allays got somethin' till say fur t' other side, Papishers an'
all. An' she gets religion quiet. But it's the real thing,"--watching