"For a little while, I think. We would not want to go away alone. And there must be some one to keep the house when I get one."
"But you know that I helped mother, oh, for a long while. Sometimes I chopped up the wood. And in the autumn I dug the potatoes and husked the corn, but we had to kill the poor hens, after all," and she sighed. "I swept up the house, too. Oh, I can do a great many things."
He took the slim little hand in his and tried to smile over her eagerness, but his heart ached as he thought of her mother, and the hardships he could not save.
"Will it be winter soon?" she inquired.
"Not a Maine winter, my child. I believe there is no real winter."
"Everything looks queer and dried up, yet it isn't cold. And what a great city, it is almost as large as New York."
He laughed at that, then he was grave a moment. "It may be as great, some day. The Pacific will be a big rival to the Atlantic."
"To think we are clear over here! Why don't they build a railroad—just so?" and she made a mark with her small finger.
"No doubt that will come also."
They made arrangements about staying for the present. It seemed queer to the child that the friend she had known so long should be Mr. Dawson's wife. Already she was giving some orders and telling what she wanted done, and did not seem a bit afraid of the portly man who could speak so sharply to the Chinese servants.