In spite of Mr. Forbes' assumption of ultra-modern reasonableness, his countenance betrayed a boyish ardor that added to Agatha's resentment against the recreant Julia. She took possession of the letters, saying to her brother, "You'd better put the pony up, hadn't you, Howard? I'll attend to Mr. Forbes' mail."
Her boarder only waited for the beat of the pony's hoofs to tell that Howard was out of hearing, before he leaned toward her, his face pathetically eager. "Is there one from her?"
"What's the post-mark?"
"She's probably at the Briercliff Manor, this week. She writes a striking hand, not the old-time idea of feminine, but full of character and strength. You'll always recognize it after you've seen it once."
Unfortunately it appeared that Agatha's education in this important branch of knowledge was not to begin immediately. There was no letter from Julia. This fact established, the light went out of Forbes' face, and it remained blank during the reading of several communications of varying degrees of interest. For the first time he seemed an embodiment of all the pitiful helplessness of the blind.
"I suppose," he ventured hesitatingly, when she had finished, "that you're too busy to take a letter for me to-day. Got to go on with that knitting, haven't you?"
Agatha longed to say yes. In her present mood, to transcribe an impassioned letter to the object of Forbes' regard, seemed well-nigh intolerable. Inexorably she forced herself to reply that she was not in the least busy. "I'll get Howard out of the way by sending him to the garden," she added. "He'll be perfectly willing to change jobs with me."
Howard, who had the average boy's aversion to the use of a pen, bore out her statement and joyfully agreed to picking peas in place of acting as an amanuensis. He went his way, favoring her with an almost ribald wink, a natural reaction from the profound respect he was now required to show her. With an expression that would have befitted Queen Elizabeth, when signing the death-warrant of Lady Jane Grey, Agatha began her task.
Forbes' mood, though disappointed, was not reproachful. His pale face flushing slightly at the novel experience of giving voice to such tender sentiments in the presence of a third person, he dictated the letter with only those pauses necessary to enable Agatha to keep pace with him.
"My Dearest Girl.
"The afternoon mail has just been brought from the village, and I was disappointed at not receiving a letter from you. Disappointed I am, but not surprised, for I am sure that wherever you are, you will have little time to yourself unless you take it by main force, so to speak. That is the penalty I pay for being in love with one so charming.
"I wish you could look in on me here, at the home of my father's old friend, Miss Agatha Kent. Oak Knoll is a fine old place. The house is spacious, comfortable and homelike, the last characteristic doubtless due to the personality of the owner. As Miss Kent is good enough to write this for me, I must wait some other opportunity to tell you how delightful I find her. Her type is disappearing, unluckily, which makes me all the more ready to congratulate myself on this chance of renewing a friendship which might almost be regarded as an inheritance.
"The troublesome eyes pained me a little last night, but lying awake was not altogether fruitless, as in the stillness I could bring your dear face before me almost as vividly as if I saw it in the flesh. To-day I feel much better. I am convinced that this wonderful air is going to make me over, and then in a few weeks I shall again have a right to indulge myself in the dreaming of those dreams which need no Daniel to interpret them."