"Cousin Ted," Cicely said earnestly, after a pause; "I wish you would ask
Mr. Barrett here to supper, some night. I want so much to meet him."
"Why, Cicely, I never supposed you were such a lion-hunter." Theodora's tone, though gentle, conveyed a distinct rebuke.
"It isn't just silly wanting to meet him," she said, as her color came. "I do want to know him, to hear him play and talk, because there isn't anybody else whose work I love as I do his. I used to feel that way about yours, Cousin Ted, and want to know you on account of your books; but now I forget all about them. It's different with Mr. Barrett. He doesn't seem especially interesting. He looks conceited and he toes in; but his work is wonderful. Besides, I want to have him hear me play. He looks as if he wouldn't mind telling disagreeable truths, and I want somebody to tell me whether I am wasting all my time, trying to do something that is impossible. I don't care whether he eats crabs or clams; he may eat with his knife, if he wants to. All I'm after is his music."
Theodora laughed at her outburst.
"I will do what I can for you, Cis; but I am afraid it is a forlorn hope. I don't believe he is a man who can be coaxed into talking shop, and I fear he hasn't the least idea of accepting any invitations, while he is down here. I will try to get him; but you may be driven into taking a piano down on the beach and discoursing sweet music to him, while he bathes."
"Bathes!" Cicely's tone was a faint echo of Phebe's. "He doesn't bathe; he paddles. No matter! Some day, I'll get what I want." But happily she had no foreknowledge of the circumstances under which she would talk of music with Gifford Barrett.
An hour later, Allyn and his father were driving away across the moors. It takes good seamanship to bear the motion of a Quantuck box cart; it requires still better seamanship to navigate one of them along the rutted roads. For some time, it took all of Dr. McAlister's energy to keep from landing himself and Allyn head foremost in the thickets of sweet fern and beach plum. By degrees, however, he became more expert in avoiding pitfalls and in keeping both wheels in the ruts, and he turned to Allyn expectantly.
"Well, Allyn, what was it?"
For two days, Allyn had been preparing himself on various circuitous routes by which he might approach his subject and slowly prepare his father's mind for the plea he wished to make. Now, however, his father had taken him by surprise, and accordingly he blurted out the whole plain truth.
"Papa, I don't want to go to college. I want to be an engineer."