“I don’t know; but it ought to be, anyhow. You know what it means.”
“And in what direction do you think my perspicuity is needed?”
“In Lisa’s and the off——I mean Ned Carew’s. You’ll see how he will bob around her. Didn’t he look funny in Mr. Danforth’s clothes?”
“He did seem lost in them; yet Mr. Danforth is not much taller than he.”
“No; but he’s bigger every way, physically and intellectually. What is it you say, grandma,—you can’t expect any one built upon pint-cup proportions to fill a quart measure? I think Ned measures just about a gill.”
“I’m afraid you don’t admire the young man.”
“He is such a popinjay,” returned Persis. “He is not a bit ‘wicious,’ but he’s—oh, I don’t know—just a sort of a tailor’s dummy. I believe if an idea should suddenly strike him it would knock him flat.”
“We’ll try to find that out. Are you going to talk about this young man all night? For if so, I’ll ask Mrs. Chamberlaine to let me share her room.”
“Oh, no, grandma; that’s mean! I am not going to open my mouth again, not even to snore.”
When Lisa saw Mr. Danforth the following morning at breakfast there was something very like admiration in the first look he gave her; for when Annis said, “Oh, Lisa, you were so brave! How could you go up there in the dark when you didn’t know but what any moment something would come crashing in on you? I couldn’t have done it. I should have been scared to death,” Lisa only answered, simply, “I didn’t think of anything but Ruth.” And then she felt her face flushing at the look she saw in Mr. Danforth’s eyes.