So she did both. She wrote out a telegram and sent it to Carrytown in the Streak. And she tried to picture in her mind a young man who should look like an angel if his eyes weren't too bold and roving.
Her sisters and her brother all proclaimed that Maud was a really sensible person. But none of them knew how really sensible she was.
She was, for instance, more interested in Colonel Meredith than in his cousin Mr. Jonstone, and for the simple reason that she knew the one to be rich and handsome and knew nothing whatever about the other.
[XXI]
Mr. Langham was at the float to welcome the two Carolinians.
"You have," he complimented Colonel Meredith, "once more proved the ability to land on your feet in a soft spot. You will be more comfortable here, better fed, better laundered than anywhere else in the world."
As they strolled from the float to the office, Mr. Jonstone looked about him a little uneasily. Not one of the beautiful girls who had looked into his eyes from the page of The Four Seasons was in sight, or, indeed, any girl, woman, or female of any sort whatever. He had led himself to expect a resort crowded with rustling and starchy boarders. He found himself, instead, in a primeval pine forest in which were sheltered many low, austere buildings of logs, above whose great chimneys stood vertical columns of pale smoke. It was not yet dusk, but the air among the long shadows had an icy quality and was heavily charged with the odor of balsam. It was difficult to believe the season summer, and Mr. Jonstone was reminded of December evenings in the Carolinas.