"Let's eat first and talk afterward," Julia proposed; but what she meant by "talk" evidently did not exclude interchange of information regarding weather and the health of acquaintances, for she spoke freely upon these subjects, while Noble murmured in response and swallowed a little of the sacred food, but more often swallowed nothing. Bitterest of all was his thought of what this unexampled seclusion with Julia could have meant to him, were those poisonous violets not at her waist—for she had put them on again—and were there no Crum in the South. Without these fatal obstructions, the present moment would have been to him a bit of what he often thought of as "dream life"; but all its sweetness was a hurt.
"Now we'll talk!" said Julia, when she had brought him back to the library fire again, and they were seated before it. "Don't you want to smoke?" He shook his head dismally, having no heart for what she proposed. "Well, then," she said briskly, but a little ruefully, "let's get to the bottom of things. Just what did you mean you had 'in black and white' in your pocket?"
Slowly Noble drew forth the historic copy of The North End Daily Oriole; and with face averted, placed it in her extended hand.
"What in the world!" she exclaimed, unfolding it; and then as its title and statement of ownership came into view, "Oh, yes! I see. Aunt Carrie wrote me that Uncle Joseph had given Herbert a printing-press. I suppose Herbert's the editor?"
"And that Rooter boy," Noble said sadly. "I think maybe your little niece Florence has something to do with it, too."
"'Something' to do with it? She usually has all to do with anything she gets hold of! But what's it got to do with me?"
"You'll see!" he prophesied accurately.
She began to read, laughing at some of the items as she went along; then suddenly she became rigid, holding the small journal before her in a transfixed hand.
"Oh!" she cried. "Oh!"
"That's—that's what—I meant," Noble explained.