“Dear old Dutton!” said Miss Charteris, looking reminiscent. “You must not break any trusting hearts down there, Mr. Darley; for the Dutton maids are not only lovely, but proverbially trusting.”
“You know Dutton, then?” Darley answered, surprised.
“Oh, yes! I have a very dear aunt in Dutton—oh, but you will see! I spent some of my happiest days there. So did you, I think, Lawrence.”
“Yes,” said Mr. Severance reflectively, “days almost as happy as the present day. Don't you think, Mr. Darley, that a man's best years cluster round the age of ten?”
Darley could not help agreeing to this. All men, provided their youth has been happy, think so. Darley said good-by, and walked on.
Who was this fellow Severance? She called him Lawrence—Lawrence, by Jove! There was something in it—rather old schoolmates, too, they had been, and what might they not be now? It was more pique than disappointment which caused Darley to wish momentarily that he was not scheduled for Dutton. However, he must stand the hazard of the die.
His things were soon packed; he also supplied himself with a box of the cigars Leonard and he used to love in “the days that are no more,” and a copy of “Outing.” And ten hours later the train, with a jovial roar, ran into the little town, where the lights gleamed cozily against the snowy background, and the sleigh-bells seemed to bid him a merry, musical welcome.
A short, erect, trimly built man with a finely chiseled face and a brown skin that seemed to breathe of pine woods and great wide, sunlit rivers grasped Darley's hand as he stepped to the platform.
“Well, old man!” exclaimed the brown man, cheerily. “Awfully glad you've come! Come this way! Here we are, Joseph! Step in!”
“By Jove! it is wintry here, isn't it?” said Darley, as he slid under the buffalo robes. “What a peerless night!”