“Violet, this is Boy. Boy, this is Major Desmond’s niece who has been with me in America, Miss Violet Morrison.”
Boy jerked himself up out of his chair, glanced at the young lady shyly, and smiled vaguely.
“Won’t you shake hands?” said Violet kindly.
Boy went through this act of courtesy with a curiously limp ungraciousness, the Major staring at him the while.
“He has grown very tall, hasn’t he?” said Miss Letty, with a little sigh, as she rang the bell for luncheon to be served.
“Tall! I should think so!” replied the Major. “He’s grown out of all knowledge. Well, sir, how are you?”
“Very well, thank you!” answered Boy, without raising his eyes from their study of the carpet.
“I suppose you don’t remember me at all,” pursued the Major—“do you?”
“Y—yes! You took me to Scotland to see Miss Letty.”
As he uttered her name thus—“Miss Letty,”—a sudden sparkle came into his eyes, and he looked at her with more interest than he had yet shown. Some little brain-cell was stirred which awakened old past associations, and a number of half-forgotten memories began to run through his mind like the notes which form the cadence of a song. “It was always like this,” he considered—“beautiful rooms and beautiful flowers,—and she—she always wore beautiful silks and lace like to-day,—but then, as mother says, she’s got any amount of money.”