"Precisely what I am wondering myself," confessed Abner. "We shall have to wait and see. But his mother—his mother," repeated Abner, "was the most beautiful woman I have ever known. If he is anything like she was as a girl—" He left the sentence unfinished.
"You have not seen her since—since she was young?" questioned Ann.
Abner shook his head. "She married an Englishman. He took her back with him to London."
"I don't like Englishmen," said Ann.
"They have their points," suggested Abner. "Besides, boys take after their mothers, they say." And Abner rose and gathered his letters together.
Ann remained very thoughtful all that day. In the evening, when Abner for a moment laid down his pen for the purpose of relighting his pipe, Ann came to him, seating herself on the corner of the desk.
"I suppose," she said, "that's why you never married mother?"
Abner's mind at the moment was much occupied with the Panama Canal.
"What mother?" he asked. "Whose mother?"
"My mother," answered Ann. "I suppose men are like that."