“It’s just as I knew it would be, Mr. Dean,” he said; his eyes were shining, his face was happy. “She’s so excited she couldn’t even write straight; her hand was all shaky. She thinks more than ever that you’re the finest person in the world.”
Mr. Dean laughed joyously. “She’ll have plenty of opportunity to discover that I’m not. Well, David, old man, I guess you’ve got me on your hands for life.”
Indeed, Mrs. Ives had written to her boy a letter that was throbbing with joy and happiness. Yet toward the end she had admitted misgivings. She felt that she should be overawed by Mr. Dean. Her looks would not matter, of course, but she was afraid he might not like her voice or the way she read aloud, and of course he would want to have some one who could read pleasantly to him. David laughed and did not pass on those doubtful questionings to Mr. Dean. He knew that his mother’s voice was all right. He laughed, too, over the end of the letter. “I’ve just told Maggie, and she said, ‘The dear sake! Of all the crazy notions! You mean to tell me you’re going to pull up stakes, root and branch!’ I said I thought I really should, and then Maggie said, ‘Very well. But you and a blind man—you’ll need me to look after the both of you!’ Isn’t it nice of her? As for Ralph, he’s simply wild with delight—” and so on.
Before the end of the school year the arrangements were partly made. Mr. Dean was to spend the summer in Boston at the school for the blind. About the first of September David was to bring his family on from the West, and then they would all go house-hunting together. David went round those last few days walking on air; examinations did not bother him; everything was fine; every one was happy.
And then there came upon him a sense of melancholy, even of sadness. He did not want so soon to leave this place that had been so dear to him. The days slipped by inexorably. And on the last night, in the middle of the school hymns, he was very near to weeping, and when he shook hands with the rector and said good-bye he could not say more than just that word.
Outside he saw a figure in white standing behind the rectory gate. He crossed the road and spoke to her.
“I hate to go, Ruth. You’ve been awfully nice to me here.”
“I’m sorry to think that you and Lester and all the rest are leaving, David. That’s the trouble with being a girl in a boys’ school. Your friends are always leaving you—over and over and over.”
“You make so many new ones that perhaps you don’t miss the old.”
“Yes, I do, David. You’ll come up and see us sometimes, won’t you?”