“Wait till I get my hat,” replied Mauney.
“Well, Mrs. Poynton,” he said as he joined her on the street and shook hands with her. “It’s a great pleasure to see such an old friend, again.”
“The same to you,” she said, as they walked along, and favored him with the close scrutiny permitted to old friends on meeting. “You’ve changed some way or other, Mauney, but I’d know you anywhere. Your hair has lost its brilliance, and you look like a man of affairs. After reading your book I didn’t know what you’d be like. I heard a few days ago that you were going to teach here; so you see you’ve taken my advice after all.”
Her voice and manner were the same, although Mauney fancied she was more animated, an impression possibly due to her extravagant, but tasteful, costume.
“I’ve nearly lost track of you,” he admitted. “I’d like to talk over old times. Are you on your way down town?”
“Just to the post office. Will you come along?”
“Thank you,” he nodded. “Where do you live, may I ask?”
“Just a little way up Church Street, the second house past the Baptist Church. We used to live on Queen Street East, but when Charles went out West this spring—by the way, did you know that the doctor had left Lockwood?”
“No, I hadn’t heard that.”
“He found the town so conservative and stodgy that he thought he’d prefer things out there, and I felt that until he got settled I’d better stay here with mother. She’s getting old, you know, and is practically an invalid with rheumatism.”