“Don’t worry,” he whispered. “We will just speak, and drift on past them.”
But when they called greeting to each other, and the Indian boatman was told to send their craft close to the little camp canoe, she raised her head and looked very levelly across the stranger, who had hair so like her own, and spoke to the Indian who paddled their boat as though he were the only one there to notice.
“Plucky!” decided Mr. Haydon, “and stubborn;” but he kept those thoughts to himself, and said aloud: “My dear young lady, I am indeed pleased to see you so far 243 recovered since my last visit. I presume you know who I am,” and he looked at her in a smiling, confidential way.
“Yes, I know who you are. Your name is Haydon, and—there is a piece of your letter.”
She picked up a fragment of paper that had fallen at her feet, and flung it out from her on the water. Mr. Haydon affected not to see the pettish act, but turned to his companion.
“Will you allow me, Miss Rivers, to introduce another member of our firm? This is Mr. Seldon. Seldon, this is the young girl I told you of.”
“I knew it before you spoke,” said the other man, who looked at her with a great deal of interest, and a great deal of kindness. “My child, I was your mother’s friend long ago. Won’t you let me be yours?”
She reached out her hand to him, and the quick tears came to her eyes. She trusted without question the earnest gray eyes of the speaker, and turned from her own uncle to the uncle of Max.