“I just guess it wasn’t Paul! He sent me a lovely card for a valentine; and while we were home in Chicago, I asked him about flowers. He never thought to wire a florist about sending me any flowers, he said. So I know Paul hadn’t anything to do with it.”
“Ah! Well, Nolla, now we know who he was, eh?” laughed Sam Brewster, tweaking Eleanor’s ear and hastening away to the barns.
Eleanor stood watching him. Then she laughed softly: “He sure did put one over on me, that time!”
As she walked slowly back to the ranch-house she soliloquized to herself. “That’s just who it was. Gee! It’s almost as fine as having a romance of my very own. But Polly doesn’t want it so.
“All the same, when John and Tom come down here, I’m going to tease Tom about the wonderful roses Polly’s brother sent her. Then we’ll see what we’ll see!”
Eleanor could keep her own counsel as well as Sam Brewster, but the two exchanged wise looks, now and then, when no one was watching. Still, never a word was said again on the rose subject.
A week after the two girls got home, the others in the party came down from Denver. Mrs. Stewart was to be Mrs. Brewster’s guest that Summer, Eleanor was Polly’s, and Anne said she was John’s visitor. Then Tom Latimer laughed and said: “I’ll have to be Mr. Brewster’s pal.”
“I can promise you that you won’t have your head turned by any pretty school-girl, Tom, if you are my guest,” chuckled Sam Brewster.
Eleanor tittered, Tom flushed, but the others laughed at such a speech.
Plans had been made to take a three-day trip up over Top Notch Trail, and inspect the progress on the mine, but Mrs. Brewster and her guest would remain at home, by preference.