"It must have been," he said, with due gravity; "and I will see that it is put right at once. Is there anything else that wants doing, Miss—Miss Lucy, I think you said your name was?"
"Yes, Lucy Somes," she said, thinking hard, and trying to remember if there was anything else wrong at her beloved school. "N-o, I don't think there is anything else the matter, excepting the roof."
"Perhaps I had better come and see for myself, he said, in a matter-of-fact way.
"Are you—an architect?" Lucy inquired, rather timidly.
Ralph Duncombe smiled.
"No; I am nothing nearly so clever. I am only an ordinary business man, very hard worked and very glad to run away from the city and into the fresh air."
"Ah, yes; how you must enjoy it!" said Lucy, with a sympathetic little sigh, "to get away from the crowd and the heat and the smoke."
So they talked, and as Ralph Duncombe listened to the sweet young voice it seemed to him as if there was a power in it to soothe his weary, restless spirit; and when Lucy suddenly exclaimed, as if she were quite surprised that they should have reached the spot so soon, "Why, here is the corner!" he pulled the horse up with evident reluctance.
"I'll drive you around to the school," he said; but Lucy declined, and so earnestly that he could not persist.
He lifted them down, and cut short Lucy's blushing thanks.