“Well——” He paused doubtfully; “I still hope—I mean, if I don’t have to go to New York to live——”
“So?” she interrupted with seeming placidity. “She declines to come here to live, does she? She hates it here, does she, already?”
“I don’t think she would,” he said quickly. “Not if she once got used to it. You see she doesn’t know anything about it; she’s never been west of Rochester, and she only thinks she wouldn’t like it. I’ve been doin’ my best to persuade her.”
“But you couldn’t?”
“Oh, I haven’t given up,” he said. “I think when the time comes——”
“But if she won’t, ‘when the time comes’,” Mrs. Savage suggested;—“then instead of living here, where you’ve grown up and want to live, you’ll go and spend your life in New York. Is that it?”
“Well, I——”
“So you’d do it,” she said, “just to please the face in that photograph!”
“You don’t understand, grandma,” he returned, and he hurriedly passed a handkerchief across his distressed forehead. “You see, it isn’t only Lena herself don’t think much of our part of the country. You see, her family——”
“Ah!” the grim lady interrupted. “She’s got a family, has she? Indeed?”