Then, as Mrs. Spade took a noisy departure, he stood, without listening to her, gazing morosely down upon the pattern of the carpet.
CHAPTER V. The Happiness of Tucker
Early in the following November, Jim Weatherby, returning from the cross-roads one rainy afternoon, brought Christopher a long, wailing letter from Will.
"Oh, I've had to walk a chalk-line, sure enough," he wrote, "since that awful day we left home in a pouring rain, with grandpa wearing a whole thunderstorm on his forehead. It has been cram, cram, cram ever since, I can tell you, and here I am now, just started at the university, with my head still buzzing with the noise of those confounded ancients. If grandpa hadn't gone when he did, I declare I believe he would have ended by driving me clean crazy. Since he left I've had time to take a look about me, and I find there's a good deal of fun to be got here, after all. How I'll manage to mix it in with Greek I don't see, but luck's with me, you know—I've found that out—so I shan't bother.
"By the way, I wish you would make Molly Peterkin understand how it was I came away so hastily. Tell her I haven't forgotten her, and give her the little turquoise pin I'm sending. It just matches her eyes. Be sure to let me know if she's as pretty as ever."
By the next mail the turquoise brooch arrived, and Christopher, putting it in his pocket, went over to Sol Peterkin's to bear the message to the girl. As it happened, she was swinging on the little sagging gate when he came up the lane, and at sight of him her eyebrows shot up under her flaxen curls, which hung low upon her forehead. She was a pretty, soulless little animal, coloured like peach-blossoms, and with a great deal of that soft insipidity which is usually found in a boy's ideal of maiden innocence.
"Why, I couldn't believe my eyes when I first saw you," she said, arranging her curls over her left shoulder with a conscious simper.
The old Blake gallantry rose to meet her challenging eyes, and he regarded her smilingly a moment before he answered.
"Well, I could hardly believe mine, you know," he responded carelessly. "I thought for an instant that a big butterfly had alighted on the gate."
She pouted prettily.