"There's father," she exclaimed with a smile that Andsdell thought enchanting.
He had met the Englishman before and greeted him politely. After a little talk he slipped his daughter's arm through his and said mostly to her—"I am ready now."
She made her adieu with a kind of nonchalant grace in which there was not a particle of coquetry. He followed her with his eyes until they had turned the corner of the bastion. Then again he saw her as they were going out.
"I should think that girl would have half the men in the town at her feet," he said.
"Oh, Miss Carrick?" as if he was not quite certain. Then with a half smile—"Do you think so? Well, she hasn't."
"She is very lovely."
"In a certain way, yes. I believe our people like more color, more dash and spirit. We are not up on a very high round, pioneers seldom are. It takes a generation or so to do the hard work, then comes the embellishment. They are rather dignified and have some French ways. An old grandfather, the fourth generation back, might have stood for a portrait of the grand Marquis. It is on the mother's side."
"She doesn't favor the French."
"No, but the boy does, a bright, handsome fellow, wild as a deer and full of pranks. It will be hard to tell what race we do favor most. A hundred years hence we will be going back with a sort of pride, hunting up ancestors. At present there is too much to do."
Andsdell went his way presently. He was comfortably well lodged. He had a bountiful supper and then he went out for a walk. There was a young moon over in the west just light enough to bring out the silvery beech trunks and touch the tips of the grasses. The woodthrush still gave his long sweet call at intervals. This path led into the town. He would not go that way. He wished he knew just where these Carricks lived. He fancied her sitting on the porch drinking in the loveliness of the evening.