“No. He was on the steamboat when we went down and the captain—it was Captain Laidlaw, father’s friend, you know—introduced him to us, and then he remembered who we were and we had great fun talking over the good times we had at Fairmount.”
“Was his sister Emily with him? She was named for me, you know. Is either of them married yet?”
“No, she wasn’t with him, and neither one of them is married. He told me his father’s sister has lived with them ever since his mother died. His father died too last year and now he manages the plantation.”
“Is he handsome?” queried Charlotte.
“N—no, not exactly handsome. But very fine-looking, and so courteous!”
“Then you saw more of him after you left the steamboat?”
“Yes. He called on us in Cincinnati, and we went out together several times and then it happened that he finished his business there in time to take the same steamboat back that we did.”
Charlotte regarded her sister with dancing eyes. “Is he coming up here to visit—us?” she demanded. Rhoda reddened under her scrutiny. She did not always find it easy to keep her composure under Charlotte’s habit of making audacious deductions and voicing reckless intuitions. But she had learned long before that to betray embarrassment was to invite more questioning. She answered with apparent unconcern:
“Father asked him to come and told him how pleased mother would be to see him, and he said that he expected to be up near the river before long and he would cross over and call on us.”
“Dear boy! Indeed, I shall be glad to see him! Adeline’s son—how time does fly!”