"We are very glad to see you," replied Mellen; "very glad."
"I am much obliged, I'm sure," exclaimed Tom, "and you're just a trump, that's the truth."
"I suppose that's the reason you keep him so carefully in your hand," interposed Elsie, laughing.
Tom was instantly covered with confusion, and let Mellen's hand drop. He knew there was a joke somewhere, but for the life of him he could not see where it come in.
"You are beginning to laugh at me before you have even said 'How do you do?'" cried he, ruefully.
"And am I not to laugh at you, if I please?" exclaimed Elsie. "Shake hands, you cross-grained old thing, and don't begin to quarrel the moment we meet."
Tom blushed like a girl while he bent over the little hand she laid in his, holding it carefully, and looking down on it with a sort of delighted wonder, as if it had been some rare rose-tinted shell that his fingers might break at the slightest touch.
But Mellen was not looking at them; he stood there wondering if this man could have been of any consequence in Elizabeth's past. Could she have loved him, and been prevented from marrying him in some way? No, it was impossible; he felt, he knew that it was so; but the idea would come into his mind nevertheless.
"When you have done examining my hand, Mr. Tom Fuller, please give it back," said Elsie. "It don't amount to much, but, as the Scotchwoman observed of her clergyman's head, 'it's some good to the owner.'"
Tom dropped the little hand as if the pink fingers had burned his palm.