“Though Lyd won’t show the very first letter she’s received in answer to our ad.,” complained the younger sister. “What’s the matter with those folks, Lyddy? Do they actually live right there near where we did on Trimble Avenue?”
“That was a loft building next to us,” said their father, curiously. “Who are the people, daughter?”
“Somebody by the name of Colesworth. The Commonwealth Chemical Company office. It’s about an old man to stay here.”
“One man only!” exclaimed ’Phemie.
“With a young man–the one who writes–to come up over Sundays, I suppose,” acknowledged Lyddy, doubtfully.
“Goody!” cried her sister. “That sounds better.”
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, ’Phemie!” chided Lyddy, with some asperity.
But Mr. Bray only laughed. “I guess I can play ‘he-chaperon’ for all the young men who come here,” he said. “Your sister is only making fun, Lydia.”
But Lyddy was more worried in secret about the Colesworth proposition than she was ready to acknowledge. She “just felt” that Harris Colesworth was the young man who had helped them the evening of the fire in the Trimble Avenue tenement.
“He found out our name, of course, and when he saw my advertisement he knew who it was. He may even have found out where we were going when we left for the country. In some way he could have done so,” thought Lyddy, putting the young man’s character before her mind in the very worst possible light.