“Y-yes.”
He walked down the room and back again.
“I don't know that you ought, but you have tempted me to wish that you would. Thank you.” He put on his glasses and read it slowly. Babbie thought he read it like a business letter.
“He ought to turn pale or red,” she thought. “Oh, he oughtn't to wear his spectacles on the end of his nose!”
Mr. Solley handed back the letter.
“Thank you, Miss Barbara,” he said, and began to talk of her great-grandmother Cutting.
Babbie blinked back her sudden tears. It was very different from a romance, where the pages will always turn and tell you the story willingly, where the hero always shows you exactly how he feels. She thought she would like to cry somewhere else. She stood up to go.
“I'm sorry I'm so silly,” she said, with a little gulp and trying to be dignified.
Mr. Solley looked amused, so far as that the wrinkles deepened about his eyes.
“Will you be a friend of mine?” he asked.