When Nort saw us, for we couldn't help going outside to meet him, he raised one hand, shouting:
"Hello, there, David!"
I remember thinking what a boy he looked. Not large, not very strong, but with a lithe swinging step and an odd tilt of the head, a little backward, as though he were looking up for the joy of it. I felt my heart rising and warming at the very sight of him.
"Well, Miss Grayson," said he, coming up the steps, "have you decided yet whether you and David are most indebted to the Macintoshes or the Scribners?"
There was laughter in his eyes as he shook Harriet's hand, and I could see the faint flush in her cheeks and the little positive nod of the head she had when she was most pleased, and didn't want it to appear too plainly. Nort had long ago discovered her undying passion for her ancestors, and already knew the complete record of that Macintosh who was an officer in the Colonial army, and who, if one were to judge by Harriet's account, was the origin of all the good traits of the Grayson family.
When Harriet is especially pleased with any one, particularly if he is a man, she thinks at once that he must be hungry; and no sooner were the greetings well over than she escaped to the kitchen.
Nort at once put on a portentous look of solemn concern, his face changing so quickly that it was almost comical.
"David," said he, "here we are right up to another issue, and no ideas."
He spoke as though he were the sole proprietor of the Star.
"Well," I said, "a little thing like that never yet prevented a newspaper from appearing regularly."