"I've almost forgotten about Maine."
"Up there the mountain peaks are covered with snow the year round."
"Then it is like the Alps."
"And the great Columbia River. No towns to speak of, but stations, hunters, and trappers, and fur animals, and wildness of every kind, game of every kind."
Something of the old adventurous life stirred within him. But he had the little girl. And when they began their travels, she would be older and have a taste for beautiful things.
Yes, the house did seem lonesome, but Laverne was very busy, and events began to happen. Mrs. Folsom made another move, this time to quite a fine family hotel, and she gave a housewarming on going in. Old friends, there were not many of them, and new friends, of whom there was an abundance, for she was a favorite as a householder. Dick had grown up into a jaunty, well-looking young fellow, and had not plunged into ruinous excesses, partly because his mother had kept a sharp oversight, and the rest his clean New England stamina, the wrecks had filled him with disgust and repulsion.
All the old friends met, of course. Mrs. Dawson was rosy and plump, and had retired to a stylish house with servants and carriage. The Dawson Café was one of the better-class institutions of the town, and coining money. Miss Gaines stood at the head of fashionable modistes, and there was no appeal from her dictum. You could accept her style or go elsewhere. There had been offers of marriage, too, she laughingly admitted to her friends. "Ten years ago I should have accepted one of them gratefully; now I value my independence."
Dick Folsom went over to Laverne.
"I haven't seen you in so long and you have grown so, I hardly knew you," he said. "May I beg the honor of your hand for this quadrille?"