He found the girl with the red hair and the honest eyes in a hammock swung between two cedars.
“Have pity on me,” he said abruptly.
She raised her eyes from her book.
“Oh, it’s you!” she said. “I am so glad. Get a chair from under the weeping ash, and sit down and talk.”
“This turf is good enough for me,” said he; “but are you sure I’m not trespassing?”
“You mean the advertisement? Oh, that was just because we had some rather awful people last year, and we couldn’t get away from them, and mother wanted to be quite safe; but, of course, you’re different. We like you very much, what we’ve seen of you.” This straightforward compliment somehow pleased him less than it might have done. “The other people were—well, he was a butterman. I believe he called himself an artist.”
“Do you mean that you do not like persons who are in trade,” he asked, thinking of the tobacconist’s assistant.
“Of course I don’t mean that,” she said; “why, I’m a Socialist! Butterman just means a person without manners or ideals. But I do like working people better than shoppy people, though I know it’s wrong.”
“How can an involuntary liking or disliking be wrong?” he asked.
“It’s snobbish, don’t you think? We ought to like people for what they are, not for what they have, or what they work at.”