There was a remote twinkle in Lizzie's old eyes, but she gave the bowl over to Billy, and tactfully withdrew to the kitchen, where she sat down with her feet in the oven. "Drat Kent!" she said to herself.
Billy moved over to sit on the edge of the couch, and Lydia began to sip the broth, spoonful by spoonful. "It's such fun to be weak and a little helpless and have people waiting on you," she said. "It's the first time it ever happened to me."
As she spoke she was thinking how Billy had improved. How immaculate he was and how well his blue suit fitted him. There was no barnyard odor about him now! Only a whiff of the good cigars he smoked.
"Billy," she said, "what would you say if next year I took the short course in agriculture?"
Billy almost dropped the bowl. "I'd be speechless!" he exclaimed.
"I hate to think of teaching," Lydia went on, "and I'm crazy about the country and farming and so is Dad. And there's more than that to it."
What more there was to it, she did not say then, for Ma Norton came bustling in. She made no comment on Billy's posing as a table! Ma was wise and she was almost as devoted to Lydia as Billy himself.
"It's nice to see the pink coming back in your cheeks, Lydia," she said. "I just ran over to say I was going into town to do some shopping, early in the morning, and if there was anything I could do for you—?"
"No, thank you," said Lydia. "I've begun to save up now to buy a cow!"
And Ma looked on with a puzzled smile as Lydia and Billy burst into sudden shrieks of laughter.