“Of course not. That’s all well now—I’ve been resting in the hammock all day. But come into the house. Supper is ready, and Aunty Landis has the most delicious chocolate, with whipped cream.”
She tripped ahead of him up the pathway and into the house, calling: “Aunty Landis! Uncle Landis! Here he is. Here’s Mr. Bob White. He’s ready for supper, I’m sure.”
The long-suffering good wife met him in the living-room. “Good-evening, Mr.—ah——”
“My name is——”
“Bob White,” interrupted the girl. “Please let it be Bob White. That must be your name. Don’t you like it?”
“Very much.”
“Then that’s what we’ll call him, please, Aunty Landis. Yesterday you were Puddin’ Tame, to-day you’re Bob White, and all the time you’re really somebody else. I’ll have the fun of meeting a new man any moment I like.”
Mrs. Landis received this remark with a look as nearly approaching to sternness as she was capable of. “Betty, you must behave. Remember, you ain’t as much of a baby as the gentleman maybe takes you for.”
The girl fell silent, and seated herself upon a chintz-covered sofa. Fessenden scanned her more closely than the dusk outside had permitted him to do.
Her hair was gathered in a shining braid that hung quite to her waist, a girlish and charming fashion. Her blue eyes watched him demurely from beneath a broad, low forehead. The sailor suit of yesterday had given place to a simple white frock—Fessenden noticed that it came fairly to her ankles, now discreetly slippered and stockinged.