At seven o'clock he left the farmhouse, and on arriving at the hotel found Mr. Gale sitting on the piazza.
"I was looking for you," said the young man. "Come up to my room."
He led the way to a front corner apartment on the second floor. It was the best room in the hotel, and he had furnished it in the most comfortable and attractive manner. Pictures hung on the walls, and there was a bookcase containing a goodly array of volumes.
"What a pleasant room!" exclaimed Andy.
"Yes; I have tried to make myself comfortable. What I lack most is society."
"I wonder that you are content to live in the country. Are you not accustomed to the city?"
"Yes; but I had a severe sickness in the spring, and the doctors recommended me to absent myself for a time from the excitement of the town and take up my residence in the country."
"Didn't that interfere with your business?"
Walter Gale smiled.
"Fortunately, or unfortunately," he answered, "I have no business. Until two years since I was employed in an insurance office in the city. The death of an uncle has made me pecuniarily independent, so that I had leisure to be sick."