So they went off together, she with a lace scarf over her shining, rippling hair, southern fashion.
"What do you think of her, father?" I asked, as we settled ourselves on the porch.
"She is out of the ordinary, a woman to take a man straight to the devil if she so elected. I don't wonder her husband keeps a good watch over her, but she seems to accept it gayly. I do not believe she has any heart."
Dan did not return until midnight. At first when he was out late I used to keep awake until I found it annoyed him. Now I went to sleep if I could, or pretended.
Two or three days after that Polly returned home.
John trudged over when he had been at his boarding place three days. It was as nice as it could be, but wasn't like this, and the street was wretched down that end. Yes, the meals were very good, and the office work was easy enough. Mr. Bayne had asked him to come in some evening, he had quite a library. He had written everything to his mother, a long, long letter, and she would be so amazed, so delighted.
"I wish I might call you Uncle John," he said in his frank, free way. "It seems to bring you into the proper relation—there's so much difference between us in years. Oh, at the office they think you know such a lot!"
"I've had a chance to learn a good deal in the years I've lived. Any one can who keeps his eyes open and adds two and five together."
"But why two and five?"
"Because it takes you farther along than two and two. Sometimes when you go out of bounds you strike a new knowledge."