"I declare, Miss Garnet, I—I wish——"
She turned her eyes to his handsome face lifted with venturesome diffidence and frowning against the blustering wind.
"I'm afraid "—he gayly shook his head—"you won't like what I say if you don't take it just as I mean it." He put his hand over the iron-work again, but she was still looking into his face, and he thought she didn't know it.
"It wouldn't be fair to take it as you don't mean it," she said. "What is it?"
"Why, ha-ha—I—I wish I were your brother!—ha-ha! Seriously, I don't believe you can imagine how much a lone fellow—boy or man—can long and pine for a sister. If I'd had a sister, a younger sister—no boy ever pined for an older sister—I believe I'd have made a better man. When I was a small boy——"
Barbara glanced at his breadth and stature with a slow smile.
He laughed. "O, that was away back yonder before you can remember."
"It certainly must have been," she replied, "and yet——"
"And yet—" he echoed, enjoying his largeness.
"I thought all the pre-his-tor-ic things were big. But what was it you used to do? I know; you used to cry for a sister, didn't you?"