“Well,” said Gale, “what do you think? Do you think those pictures and that singing of hers will convert the heathen?”
I looked at the wonderful girl, who was laughing and closing the portfolio.
“They would convert me,” I said fervently, “to anything.”
Gale seemed to enjoy this enthusiasm.
“People mostly like us when they know us, eh, Johnnie?”
But Miss Gale was retiring with the portfolio. He turned to me.
“That’s a great girl,” he said. “The only piece of property but one that I never wanted to part with. The other one was her mother. Johnnie came just in time to take her place, and I don’t know what I’d’ a’ done if she hadn’t. Being a mother to her kept me busy, and she’s been mother and father and whole family to me. She’s kept me going straight for about twenty-five years now, and is about the finest south-slope blue-grass addition that the Lord ever helped lay out. And she cares more for her old daddy than for anybody else in the world. Her old daddy and her pictures. She never saw a young man that she cared to look at twice, unless he could do something, and then it was for his talents, and not for him. When they fall in love with her she generally gets tired of their paintings, or their music, or whatever it is, and they go away. They all seem to do it, though. You’d be in love with her yourself in a week, if you lingered about this ship. It’s in the air, and everybody gets it. I wouldn’t say much about it, though, if it was me. If we should go to the South Pole, you’d want to stay with the expedition, and after we got out to sea you’d have some trouble getting ashore again in case you didn’t find the ship comfortable. There’s another young man that comes here. He’s got a scheme for——”
But Miss Gale re-entered at that moment. She had made some slight changes in her toilet, and was more entrancing than ever. Her father had been right, I thought, only he had named too long a period. He had said “in a week.” His prophecy was already fulfilled.
“I say, Johnnie,” greeted Gale, “why wouldn’t our wireless telegraphy scheme go well with this expedition, especially with the balloon part? How about that, Chase? Would it fit in?”
“Perfectly, but Marconi seems to have it all in his own hands, as yet.”