"And this is Mr. Henty!" cried Mrs. Nelson, after her first little cry.
"Yes," said Evan, looking at Lou, "this is the other rube."
Lou's face burned.
"I didn't include Mr. Henty," she explained, "when I used to call you a rube, brother. In fact, you both look like real sports now."
"Oh, we're sports all right," said A. P., laughing with peculiar animation.
Was there nothing lacking at that lunch-party? Why then did Evan, for brief moments, seem absent-minded? Probably it was the bank union that engaged his thoughts. His sister had so many questions to ask him he could not get a chance to formulate a sufficiently sly question about Hometon, and the people there. When he observed that he was going up, with Henty, to rest a while, his mother said:
"You'll see everything the way you left it; nothing new to tell you, son. Except—oh, well!—How many thousand miles have you travelled?"
"We estimate them in millions," said Henty, soberly.
Noon-hour passed away very rapidly, and the boys escorted the Nelsons over to the Hall. Henty was informed that somebody waited to see him. It was the old gentleman.
He was dressed in typically farmer style, and wore a merry smile. After a brief greeting with his son he turned for an introduction to Lou, and was soon chuckling at everything she said.