"I was coming out the avenue and spied you mooning over here by yourself. What's the trouble?"
"No trouble at all. Just stopped to get my wind a bit—and watch the sunset."
"I think you are working too hard." She looked at him with anxious solicitude. "I've a good notion to put you on buttermilk again."
"Good work! Put me on anything you like except dried peaches and wienies."
"And you need more recreation," Rose persisted. "It's not good for anybody to work all day and go to school at night. What's the matter with us getting Cass and Fan Loomis and going down to Fontaine Ferry to-night?"
"Can't do it," said Quin with ill-concealed pride. "Got a date with Miss Eleanor Bartlett."
Rose sat silent for a moment, stirring the dead leaves with her shabby boot; then she turned and laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Quin," she said, "I am worried sick about Nell and Harold Phipps."
Quin, who had been trying to beguile a squirrel into believing that a pebble was a nut, looked up sharply.
"What do you mean?" he said. "She hasn't seen him since last summer, and she never mentions his name."