"Look! oh, do look at the little Canuck!" cried a classmate.
"I never saw any one dance as she does"—it was Doctor Travers who spoke from the doorway beside Mrs. Thomas—"but once before. It's quite primeval, an instinct. No one can teach or acquire such grace as that."
Then, suddenly, and apropos of nothing, apparently:
"By the way, Mrs. Thomas, Miss Moffatt has been ordered abroad by Doctor Ledyard. He spoke to-day about securing a companion-nurse for her. She's not really ill, but in rather a curious nervous condition. I was wondering if——" His eyes followed Priscilla, who was nearing the cluster of palms behind which Boswell sat.
"Of course!" Mrs. Thomas smiled broadly; "Miss Glynn, of course! She's made to order. The girl has her way to make. She's been rather overdoing lately. I don't like the look in her eyes at times. She never asks for sympathy or consideration, you understand, but she makes every woman, and man, too, judging by that rich cripple, Mr. Boswell, yearn over her. She'd be the merriest soul on earth, with half a chance, and she's the most capable girl I have: ready for an emergency; never weary. Why, of course, Miss Glynn!"
"I'll speak to Doctor Ledyard to-night," said Travers.
Then, strangely enough, Travers realized that he was very tired. He excused himself, and, walking back through the dim city streets to the Ledyard home, he thought of Kenmore and the old lodge as he had not for years.
"I believe I'll run up there this summer," he muttered half aloud. "I'll take mother and urge Doctor Ledyard to join us. I would like to see how far I've travelled from the In-Place in—why it's years and years! All the way from boyhood to manhood."
But Ledyard changed the current of his desire. The older man was sitting in his library when Travers entered, and Helen Travers was in the deep window opening to the little garden space behind the house.
Time had dealt so gently with Helen that now, in her thin white gown, she looked even younger than in the Kenmore days, when her dress had been more severe.