“You were fortunate.”
“Wasn’t I? Bring that stool and sit here by me. It’s delightful in the afternoon sunshine.”
Frank was ready enough to do as she directed, and soon he was seated at her side, chatting with her freely. She thanked him earnestly for what he had done, and again declared she could never forget it. They laughed over the adventure, as if it had been of no consequence.
She was lively company, as he soon found, and she made that hour spent thus with her pass most pleasantly and swiftly. She was witty, too, and only occasionally did she drop into slang.
After a time, Merry thought he would try to discover how much she really knew. Her language seemed to indicate that she was intelligent, but he was surprised to find her something of a scholar and a great reader.
“You see, reading is nearly all the amusement I have at home,” she said; “and so, whenever I go to the city, I buy a stack of the latest books. I have a large box of books on the way down home now.”
He found she had read something besides the ordinary gushing love story, for she could talk with him of “David Copperfield,” “Vanity Fair,” “Ivanhoe,” “The Scarlet Letter,” and so forth. But he was most surprised when she informed him that Stevenson’s “Treasure Island” was her favorite book.
“There is something about the men in that book that attracts me,” she declared. “I have seen such men as Silver and Israel Hands.”
“You have?” cried Frank. “Why, they were desperate characters!”
“Well, you can find desperate characters not far from here. You are on ‘the line’ now. It’s easy for a man who commits a crime to cross over and get away.”