“Of course. Perhaps that makes all the difference. Do you mind my asking who your mother was, Betty?”
“My mother was related to the first families of Maryland.”
He could hardly forbear a smile at the pride manifest in her tone. “I see. She has a right to be proud of her daughter.”
“Really? Bob White, that’s the very nicest thing you could say to me if you’d tried a hundred years. Mother died when I was quite a little girl.”
Fessenden was silent. For a while, the girl guided the gray mare from wood-road to rambling lane, from lane to turnpike, and from turnpike back to lane. As they rounded a low hill, Fessenden felt the salt breath of the bay upon his face.
“Where are we bound?” he asked.
“To Jim George’s. It’s a sort of inn—a very rustic inn. He cooks delicious things. People come here for dinners from as far as Baltimore, but I think it’s too early in the season yet for anybody to be here but us.”
“I hope so with all my heart.”
They ascended a sandy track through a little forest of pine, and emerged upon an open space. At the foot of a bluff the bay stretched to the horizon. On the forest side stood a log-cabin, amplified on all sides by a veranda of unbarked pine.
From this structure promptly hobbled a white-haired darky.