"If I just let myself go, I really can eat," admitted Neale O'Neil. "And this is so much better cooking than I have been used to."
There it was again! Ruth and Agnes wanted—oh! so much—to ask him where he had lived, and with whom, that he had never before had proper food given him. But although Neale was jolly, and free to speak about everything else, the moment anything was suggested that might lead to his explaining his previous existence, he shied just like an unbroken colt.
"Just as if he didn't have any existence at all," complained Agnes, "before he ran through our side gate this morning, yelling to me to 'hold on.'"
"Never mind. We will win his confidence in time," Ruth said, in her old-fashioned way.
"Even if he had done something——"
"Hush!" commanded Ruth. "Suppose somebody should hear? The children for instance."
"Well! of course we don't really know anything about him."
"And I am sure he has not done anything very bad. He may be ashamed of his former life, but I am sure it is not because of his own fault. He is just very proud and, I think, very ambitious."
Of the last there could be no doubt. Neale O'Neil was not content to remain idle at all. As soon as he had finished at Mr. Murphy's, he returned to the old Corner House and beat rugs until it was time for supper.
There was little wonder that his appetite seemed to increase rather than diminish—he worked so hard!