"Ain't too big fer an old fellow like me to kiss, are ye?"
Then he held her off at arm's length and admired her lovely, eager face, and her slender, lithe figure in its garb of Paris finery. "Well, well! Yer the real thing, ain't ye?"
Betty's eyes danced with pleasure. "Do you like this frock, Guardy?"
With wise nods of wondering approval Hiram studied Paquin's exquisitely suave creation of amethyst gray velvet, with its narrow trimming of black fox. Thrown carelessly over the girl's shoulders was a chiffon scarf of cobweb thinness, marvelously shaded from jonquil yellow to rosy pomegranate. And Betty's burnished brown hair melted glowingly into the purple lining of her white brimmed leghorn hat, with its knot of pale mauve pansies and its tossing topaz plume.
Hiram nodded in approval. "Like the frock and like the girl inside it. Sit down and tell me about things. How d'ye come to be so late? Miss yer train, or—what?"
"Why, we had an adventure," laughed Betty, "a most exciting adventure. Everything went well until we reached Chatham Junction. The bishop was perfectly lovely. He talked of all sorts of things, especially golf. I happened to have my golf bag with me and—you know, he's a great golfer."
"I know," said Baxter. "It gets me how many o' these brainy men like to waste time battin' them foolish little balls around a field. Guess I'll have to tackle it myself one o' these days. Well, what was the adventure?"
Betty's face grew serious, and she described, as clearly as she could, the bishop's misfortune on the train.
"Five thousand pounds!" exclaimed Hiram. "Well, well! Poor old Bish! Ain't that a shame?"
"There was a young woman in the carriage with us," went on Betty, "such an interesting face—rather foreign looking, and, when the bishop found that his purse was gone, he called the guard and the guard called the police and—they insisted on searching this young woman. I was so sorry. I knew she was innocent, and sure enough she was."