Aunt Sarah still stared in amazement. "Can it be that that seems to have changed Ruth so?" she asked at last.
"You've noticed it?" cried the Scotchwoman.
"Yes. As you have suggested, she seems down-hearted. But why—"
"There's something that went wrong. 'Love's young dream,' as they say, is having a partial eclipse, so it is! I see no letters comin' from that college where the laddie has gone."
"But she hears from Cecile Shepard," said Aunt Sarah. "She reads me extracts from Cecile's letters. A very lively and pleasant girl is Cecile."
"So she is," admitted the housekeeper. "But I'm a sight more interested in the laddie. Why doesn't he write?"
"Why—er—would that be quite the thing, Mrs. MacCall?" asked Aunt Sarah, momentarily losing much of her grimness and seemingly somewhat fluttered by this discussion of Ruth's affair.
"'Twould be almost necessary, Miss Maltby, I can tell you, if he was a laddie of mine," declared the Scotchwoman vigorously. "I'd no have a sweetheart that was either tongue-tied or unable to write."
"Oh, but you take too much for granted," cried Aunt Sarah.
"My observation tells me the two of them are fair lost on each other. I watched 'em while young Shepard was here. It's true they are young; but they'll never be younger, and it's the young lovin' and matin' was made for—not for old bodies."