It was signed, "Yours, my dear, Sarah Hunter."
There was a quaint twist to the letter S; sharp angles in the chirography which a newer decade of femininity might have found sadly lacking in a largeness of loops now indispensable as indication of "character." And there was a postscript, of course.
"Stephen O'Mara has been several times to dinner, since your departure. He is working very hard, but most successfully, I am sure, for he appears to be very happy. He is thinner than he was, but who could have guessed that the boy he was would grow to be such a handsome man! Men with eyes like his and such voices used to break the hearts of susceptible maids, when I was sixteen. Do come! S. H."
She read it aloud from beginning to end, nor did she falter much when Caleb greeted the postscript with a shout of joy. Caleb was most high-spirited those days, for the line in regard to the progress of Steve's work was in truth an under-statement if anything, even though the assurance of his happiness might have been called a misconstruance of facts. Caleb had almost begun to think that he had done Dexter Allison, his friend, an injustice. He had begun to congratulate himself on having said nothing to him directly.
"What do you think of it?" his sister asked pleasantly, when she had finished reading. "Will it—do?"
"If you mean—will it fetch her, I can only say Heaven knows!" Indeed he was enjoying himself. "You feel positive that she cares for him, you say?… But I thought you were always inclined to believe Steve rather easy to look at, even as a boy?"
"I was!" maintained Miss Sarah. Her voice grew girlish. "Do you remember the night you gave him my old hunting coat, Cal, and he went to sleep with it in his arms?"
Some of the teasing note left her brother's voice.
"Then why do you tell Barbara—why do you seem to infer—" he foundered hopelessly.
"Stupid!" said Miss Sarah. "Will she come?"