"We oughtn't forget each other after that five months' journey together," he remarked in one of the pauses. "Does it ever seem queer to you, as if it was something you dreamed? I can't make it real. But they've improved the overland so much, and when we get the railroad—presto; you will see a change! If we were only nearer England. But there's China, if we are not swamped by the pigtails and pointed slippers! How queer they are! We don't need to go to foreign lands to study the nations. I sometimes wonder what the outcome of all this conglomeration will be!"
"We are so far off," she replied in a sort of tentative fashion. "It's almost like another town."
"Yes. They'll tumble you down presently, as they did before. You wouldn't know the old place, would you? They've carted away stones and débris to fill up the marshy edges of the bay. And there's a long, straight street, a drive out to fine country ways. Is there any other land so full of flowers, I wonder!"
"And they are so royally lovely. Think of great patches of callas in blossom nearly all the time. Miss Holmes said when she was at home she used to nurse up one to blossom about Easter. If she had two flowers she thought it quite a marvel."
What a soft, musical laugh the child had! They used to run races on the boat, he remembered, and he had enough boyish gallantry to let her win. They ought to be dear old friends.
"Do you ever go out to drive on Sunday afternoon?"
"It's Uncle Jason's day, the only leisure he has. And we spend it together."
"He's had stunning luck, too. Getting to be a rich man."
"Is he?" she said simply.
"Is he? Well, you ought to know," laughing.