"Oh yes, I shall. I am always a good deal more serious than people suppose." He bestowed upon her a look serious enough to match his words. It was as serious as any one could have wished, and Rosy dropped her eyes and was distinctly pensive for a minute or two.
Presently the Ingleses came picking their way through the grove in a surrey. Cecilia Ingles alighted with the air of one somewhat at sea. She greeted Rosy quite pleasantly, but seemed to be looking about for the captain. The dry, shrewd, middle-aged face of her husband adjusted its expression readily enough to the matter before them. He was a born manager and manipulator. When he could not juggle with a dollar for profit, he was content to juggle with a penny for pleasure.
Susan Bates hastened up to his wife at once, and kissed her roundly. "So good of you to come! And on Sunday, too!"
"Never mind," said Ingles; "we can put twice as much on the plate next
Sunday."
Mrs. Ingles at once appropriated William Bates for a walk through the framework of the unfinished dormitories. Ingles followed with Mrs. Bates.
"Things are going first-rate," declared Susan Bates. "We shall be under cover in a week, and ready for the painters."
"No plaster?" asked Ingles.
"Dear me, no. Two coats of paint will be quite warm enough."
Rosy, meanwhile, sat upon a pack of shingles under a young maple-tree which grew within a few steps of the water. Paston lay at her feet and dug in the sand with a split shingle drawn from the pack, while the other young people tramped and frolicked with shrill cries through the dismantled grove and unfinished buildings.
"It was at her house, you remember, that I first met you," said Paston.
He nodded to Mrs. Ingles, who was just moving by with the reluctant
William Bates.