“I'm glad to rest,” Elinor said, dropping down on a stone. Her cheeks were blooming from the exercise of the tramp, and her pretty hair was in disorder.
Far away from the west prairie came the faint note of a child's voice in song.
“Victor,” Elinor said, as they listened, “do you know that the Sunrise girls envy Bug Buler? They say you would have more time for the girls if it wasn't for him. What you spend for him you could spend on light refreshments for them, don't you see?”
“I know I'm a stingy cuss,” Vic said, carelessly, but a deeper red touched his cheek.
“You know you are not,” Elinor insisted, “and I've always thought it was a beautiful thing for a big grown man like you to care for a little orphan boy. All the girls think so, too.”
Burleigh looked down at her gratefully.
“I thought once—in fact, I was told once—that my care for him was sufficient reason why I should let all the girls alone, most of all why I should not think of Elinor Wream.”
“How strange!” Elinor's face had a womanly expression. “I've never had a little child to love me. I've been brought up with only AEneas's small son Ascanius, and other classical children, on Uncle Joshua's Dead Language book shelves. I feel sometimes as if I'd been robbed.”
“You? I didn't know you had ever wanted anything you did n't get.”
Victor had thought all things were due to her and came as duly. The womanly look on her face now was a revelation to him. But then he had not dared to study her face for months, and he did not yet realize what life in Dr. Fenneben's home must mean to her character-building.