Mrs. Worden smiled proudly. "Our daughter, Elsie. She's seventeen now and we won't see her for two years. She's in the West with her aunt."
"Oh!" said Clark. His brows pulled down and he scanned the print with close attention. "She has imagination I take it."
"Too much for her own comfort," remarked the judge.
Clark did not answer but dropped into one of those thoughtful silences which, while they did not seem to exclude, made it nevertheless appear presumptuous to rouse him.
"Too much imagination," he repeated presently. "Is that possible?"
Then, after another long stare, "It's a very unusual face."
Mrs. Worden looked very happy. "We're going to take great care of
Elsie when we get her back. She had this long, delightful invitation
and we let her go because we thought she'd see more than she could in|
St. Marys, but she writes that it's even quieter."
"The old St. Marys is nearly at an end and your daughter will find food for her imagination when she gets back. May I show this to Mr. Belding?"
The young man took the photograph with a queer sense of participation in something he did not understand. He saw a broad, low forehead, masses of soft and slightly curly hair, eyes that looked beautifully and wistfully, out from beneath finely arched brows and a mouth that lacked nothing in humorous suggestion. Puzzling for an instant what it was that had attracted his impersonal chief, he heard the latter saying good night with customary abruptness.
"Come along, Belding; we've got a long day ahead of us. The directors will be here to-morrow."
The judge was vastly interested. "So St. Marys is in actual touch with
Philadelphia?"