“Did you, grandma?”
“Yes. Your running wild would never amount to much; you come of too steady a stock on both sides not to get over it and settle down. No; what I was afraid of is just what I expect has happened.”
“What’s that?” Dan asked indulgently. “What do you think’s happened, grandma? Think I got too extravagant and threw away a lot of money?”
“No,” she replied; and to his uncomfortable amazement continued grimly: “I expect you’ve fallen in love with some no-account New York girl and want to marry her.”
“Grandma!”
“I do!” the old lady asserted. “Isn’t that what’s been the matter with you?”
She spoke challengingly, with an angry note in the challenge, and Dan’s colour, ruddy after his walk, grew ruddier;—the phrase “no-account New York girl” hurt and offended him, even though his grandmother knew nothing whatever of Lena McMillan. “You’re very much mistaken,” he said gravely.
“I hope so,” Mrs. Savage returned. “Who was that you were talking to out at my front gate?”
“Martha Shelby.”
“Martha? That’s all right,” she said, and added abruptly: “If you’ve got to marry somebody you ought to marry her.”