As Mr. Porter talked Constance’s cheeks grew rosier and rosier, and her eyes danced with fun. Of this he speedily became aware, and looking at her keenly he asked:
“Have you ever eaten any of the old Auntie’s candy? Does she make it herself? I’ve asked her a dozen times, but I can’t get her to commit herself! She always gets off a queer rigmarole about her ‘pa’tner,’” ended Mr. Porter, smiling as he recalled Mammy’s clever fencing with words.
“Yes, I’ve eaten it. No, she doesn’t make it; she only sells it. I make it,” confessed Constance, nervously toying with the ends of her fur collar.
“You don’t say so! Why it’s the best candy I’ve ever tasted. Well, really! And you think of opening a stand?” concluded Mr. Porter, a little incredulously, for the girl before him did not seem to be one who would venture upon such an enterprise.
“Well yes, and no. I want to have a place to sell it here in South Riveredge, but I can’t exactly have a counter you see, because I am still in school the greater part of the day. So I thought up a plan and—and I want to try it. Would you mind if I told you about it?”
The sweet voice and questioning look with which the words were spoken would have won the ear of a less interested man than Robert Porter. More than an hour passed before this plan which had been simmering in the girl’s active brain, was laid before the practical business man, and he was amazed at what he afterwards pronounced its “level-headedness.”
When the conversation ended, Constance was wiser by many very sane suggestions made by her listener, and more than ever determined to carry her plan through.
“Now, young lady, by-the-way, do you mind letting me know your name? We can talk better business if I do. Mine’s Porter.”
“I am Constance Carruth,” said Constance.
“Carruth? Not Bernard Carruth’s daughter?”