“Perhaps he guessed as much. You do like this Griffin, I take it.”
Esther had ceased to smile. “Why, yes, I do,” she declared. “I told you I did. He is a nice boy and I do like him. But, Uncle Foster, I don’t see why you speak this way. If you think—”
“There, there!” rather testily. “I said, in the beginning, that I wasn’t going to think anything. You and I agreed that we wouldn’t have any secrets from each other, so why should I think?”
“You shouldn’t. Uncle Foster, if you don’t want Bob to come here—”
“Sshh! I told you he could come—if he didn’t come too often.”
“So you do think he is coming too often?”
“I didn’t say so. I was just wondering what his grandfather might be thinking about it. He has told the old man, of course?”
He had not and Esther knew it. Bob had announced his intention of telling his grandfather of his friendship with Foster Townsend’s niece, but he had put off the telling, waiting, he said, for a favorable opportunity. Townsend, keenly scrutinizing the girl’s face, read his answer there.
“Well, well,” he added, before she could reply. “That is his business, not yours nor mine, my dear. Only,” he said, with a grim chuckle, “I shall be interested to hear how Elisha takes the news.”
It was this which had troubled Esther ever since. And now Tuesday evening had arrived and, in an hour or two, unless her surmise was very wrong indeed, Bob himself would come. If he had not told Mr. Cook he must do so at once. She should insist upon it.