"Six times in four years."
"Have you a girl in every place where you lived?"
"Not exactly," he laughed. "Of course, I write an odd letter to somebody in every one of those towns."
The school-girl had found out what she wanted to know. If Dunlap had come to visit her with any idea that she had forgotten her school-"fellow," Nelson, he could not have cherished the illusion long, for she seemed to lose interest in everything, all very suddenly, and when he suggested that he probably ought to go back and balance the ledger-keeper's books she encouraged him in so generous an undertaking. A man with six girls knows when he is wanted.
Frankie went in to her piano and played "Sleep and Forget." That was a strange selection for a young school-girl to choose; but young girls are born dramatists. Darkness had fallen and the stars were beginning to peep. She was on the verandah again, looking at the evening sky, wondering why people left home and loved ones for the other things, wealth, fame, pleasure, change. The night had sadness in its countenance—which it reflected to the girl's. She was quite like a summer's evening. She should have been, perhaps, more like a summer morning.
While the Hometon girl stood on her father's verandah, gazing and philosophizing, Evan stood on the Watersea verandah at Mt. Alban, gazing also, but not reflecting. He was looking into the eyes of Julia, rather steadily for a lad of less than eighteen, and talking.
"Mighty good of you to take in a stranger like me," he was saying.
"My dear boy" (Julia was past nineteen), "we just love to have your company. Come any time you can."
He had a sudden impulse to take her hand, but she seemed to detect it, and subdued him with a powerful smile.
"Miss Wat—"