"What pleases you?" I asked him.
"Pleases me?" he echoed, evidently surprised. "Isn't it a pleasure to see you?"
"But that's not the whole of it," I said. "You've something pleasant to tell me. Oh, I can read you like a book, my dear; so it is quite idle trying to keep a secret from me."
He seemed confused, and I was puzzled to know what was the matter.
"You are too wise entirely," was his reply. "I really hadn't anything to tell."
"Then something good has happened," I persisted; "or you have heard good news."
"What a fanciful girl you are, Ruth," George returned. "Nothing has happened."
He walked away from me, and went to the fire. He was strangely embarrassed, and I could only wonder what I had said to confuse him. I reflected that perhaps he was planning some sort of a surprise, and felt I ought not to pry into his thoughts in this fashion whatever the matter was that interested him. I sat down on the other side of the hearth, and took up some sewing.
"George," I asked, entirely at random, "didn't you say that the Miss West you met at Franklin is a cousin of the Watsons?"