"He's our pastor and perfectly lovely, Hester. He has been with us a long, long time. I told you once about him, but you were vexed with me then and my words fell on deaf ears. Sometime you must come and spend a month with me in my home and you shall meet Doctor Baker."
"I never would go and leave Aunt Debby for an entire month. It was bad enough to go to school and not be with her," was Hester's reply.
"But Aunt Debby can come along. My father would like her, and she and Aunt Harriet would be friends from the moment they met. Maybe we can arrange it for this summer. Sometimes Doctor Baker comes to visit us, too. He gets very lonely. I should think any one living alone would be lonely."
"Isn't he married?" asked Hester. "I thought ministers were always married. Why doesn't he get married?"
"You think a marriage certificate goes with the manse," said Robert. "His case is a paradox. He is always marrying, and yet never is married. Quite a riddle isn't it?"
Helen's face lighted up. She was like Hester in that both delighted to hear romantic stories.
"He had a love affair, a long time ago," she said softly as though the subject were one too sacred for full tones to play upon. "But he went to college, and when he came back his sweetheart did not care for him. But he has never forgotten her."
Hester gave a sigh of contentment. She would remember and tell her Aunt Debby about this. While her Aunt Debby had chided her about repeating these little romantic tales which came to her ears, Hester had a feeling that the elder Miss Alden was not wholly unsympathetic.
Josephine, who was sitting in the front of the tally-ho, caught the last of Helen's speech. She sighed, and leaning forward that all might catch her words, said: "How lovely! Such persons appeal to me. There is nothing in the world which is so beautiful to me as faithfulness. How perfectly lovely! I always—"
"Hester, lend me a pin, please. I see you have one in the front of your coat and I need one to fasten the ends of my tie," it was Renee who broke in upon Josephine's flow of sentiment.