He went on to Philadelphia for the purpose of telling Mary, but he did it when Carl was not present.
Mary blenched. "Father, don't! People might—"
"Damn people! I like the boy. You're a coward, Mary, and so is—Robertson."
"No! He isn't! Carl isn't. I am."
"I won't compromise you," he ended, contemptuously. "Tell Robertson I mean to do it. If he has anything to say he can say it in a letter." Then he kissed her perfunctorily and said, "Goo'-by—goo'-by," and took the night train for Mercer.
He lost no time when he got back to Old Chester in putting his plan through. The very next afternoon, knowing that Johnny would be at Doctor Lavendar's Collect Class, he called on Miss Lydia. Miss Sampson's little house was more comfortable than it used to be; the quarterly check which came from "some one" patched up leaky roofs, and bought a new carpet, and did one or two other things; but it did not procure any luxuries, either for Johnny or for herself, and it never made Miss Lydia look like anything but a small, bedraggled bird; her black frizette still got crooked and dipped over one soft blue eye, and she was generally shabby—except on the rare occasions when she wore the blue silk—and her parlor always looked as if a wind had blown through it. "I wouldn't touch their money for myself!" she used to think, and saved every cent to give to Johnny when he grew up.
Into her helter-skelter house came, on this Saturday afternoon, her landlord. He had knocked on her front door with the gold head of his cane, and when she opened it he had said, "How do? How do?" and walked ahead of her into her little parlor. It was so little and he was so big that he seemed to fill the room.
Miss Lydia said, in a fluttered voice, "How do you do?"
"Miss Sampson," he said—he had seated himself in a chair that creaked under his ruddy bulk and he put both hands on the top of his cane; his black eyes were friendly and amused—"I've had it in mind for some time to have a little talk with you."
"Yes, sir," said Miss Lydia.