“I’m afraid I’m going to have to upset our plans again,” he said. “I’m awfully sorry, mother; but Brown is coming on from Boston expecting to meet me at noon; and I guess there’s nothing to do but wait until the two o’clock train. Shall you mind very much?”
“Not at all,” said his mother, smiling. “Why should I mind? I came on to be with you. Does it matter whether I’m in Philadelphia or Washington?”
“Is there anything you would like to do this morning? Any shopping? Or would you like to drive about a bit?”
She shook her head.
“I can shop at home. I came here to be with you.”
“Then let’s drive,” he decided with a loving smile. “Where would you like to go? Anything you want to see?”
“No—or wait. Yes, there is. I’ve a fancy I’d like to drive past the house where that little girl I met on the train lives. I’d like to see exactly what she’s up against with her firm little chin and her clear, wise eyes and her artistic ways.”
“At it again, aren’t you, mother? Always falling in love and chasing after your object. You’re worse than a young man in his teens”; and he smiled understandingly. “All right; we’ll hunt her up, mother; only we shan’t have much time to stop, for I have to be here sharp at twelve thirty. Do you know where she lives?”
“Yes, I have her address here,” said his mother, searching in her silver bag for the card on which Cornelia had written it. “But I don’t want to stop. It wouldn’t do. She would think me intruding.”
The young man took the address, and ordered a taxicab; and five minutes after Cornelia entered the door of her home with her arms full of bundles from market and grocery a taxicab crawled slowly by the house, and two pairs of eyes eagerly scanned the high, narrow, weather-stained building with its number over the front door the only really distinct thing about it.