"Oh, she's back and forth every day—for milk, or one thing or another; she's terribly interested in the farm; father's taken a great notion to her. She'll be over after supper, you'll see; and then I'll make you acquainted with her."
"Are they city people?" Pauline asked.
"From New York!" Mrs. Boyd told her proudly. From her air one would have supposed she had planned the whole affair expressly for Hilary's benefit. "Their name's Dayre."
"What is the girl's first name?" Pauline questioned.
"Shirley; it's a queer name for a girl, to my thinking."
"Is she pretty?" Pauline went on.
"Not according to my notions; father says she is. She's thin and dark, and I never did see such a mane of hair—and it ain't always too tidy, neither—but she has got nice eyes and a nice friendly way of talking. Looks to me, like she hasn't been brought up by a woman."
"She sounds—interesting," Pauline said, and when Mrs. Boyd had left them, to make a few changes in her supper arrangements, Pauline turned eagerly to Hilary. "You're in luck, Hilary Shaw! The newest kind of new people; even if it isn't a new place!"
"How do you know they'll, or rather, she'll, want to know me?" Hilary asked, with one of those sudden changes of mood an invalid often shows, "or I her? We haven't seen her yet. Paul, do you suppose Mrs. Boyd would mind letting me have supper in here?"
"Oh, Hilary, she's laid the table in the living-room! I heard her doing it. She'd be ever so disappointed."