“You’ll be telling me all about our literary societies and women’s clubs and the factories, if I don’t take care,” he returned lightly. “How dreadful all that is!” He sighed, and continued: “I suppose you’ve been trying to convince your father he ought to extend one of his street-car lines out into the wilderness toward Dan’s ‘Addition.’ Is that what you’ve been up to with the old gentleman, Martha?”
“Yes, it is,” she said quickly. “If he doesn’t, how are people to get out there?”
“Quite so! That’s one reason why everybody downtown is laughing at Dan. Your father will never do it, Martha. Have you any idea he will?”
“Not much of one,” she admitted sadly, and shook her head. “He doesn’t understand Dan’s theory that the car line would pay for itself by fares from the people who’d build along the line.”
“No, I shouldn’t think he’d understand that—at least not very sympathetically!”
“Dan isn’t discouraged, is he?” she asked.
“No, he isn’t the temperament to be discouraged by anything. It’s a matter of disposition, not of facts, and Dan was born to be a helpless optimist all his life. For instance, he still believes that when he marries his Miss McMillan and brings her here to live, grandmother will learn to like her! Yet he ought to know by this time that grandmother’s a perfect duplicate of your father in the matter of plaster of Paris. I suppose you’ve seen Miss McMillan’s photograph, Martha?”
Harlan glanced at her as if casually, but she answered without any visible embarrassment: “Oh, yes; he brought it over, and talked of her a whole evening. If the photograph’s like her——” She paused.
“It’s one of those photographs that are like,” Harlan observed. “My own judgment is that she’s not precisely the girl to put on a pair of overalls and go out and help Dan clear the underbrush off his ‘Addition.’ ”
“Is he doing that himself? I haven’t seen him for days and days.”