Silence fell between them for a few moments after Kenneth's last remark, then Nell said, with a saucy smile, "So you, I suppose, are never sad, Dr. Clendenin."
"Alas, Miss Lamar," he answered with a far away look in his eyes, an expression of keen anguish sweeping across his features, yet passing away so quickly that she could hardly feel sure it had been there, "my theory and practice do not always agree."
"Well," said she, "I don't believe there is anybody in the world who is not sad at times. Yet we have a great deal to make us glad, and just now I feel as blithe as a bird. We are coming to a river."
"Yes, the Scioto."
"Oh, then we must be near Chillicothe, are we not?"
"Yes, here is the ferry, and yonder, on the farther side, lies the town."
"That! I see only a few log cabins scattered here and there in a dense forest."
"True, miss, that is just what it is," said the ferryman, pushing off, for they were already on board his flat boat; "but you'll find more houses than you'd think, and the streets marked out quite straight and wide."
"And can you tell me in which Major Lamar lives?" Nell asked eagerly.
"Certainly, miss, there are not so many of us that we don't all know each other's faces, and houses too. The major lives on Walnut Street, but a step from where I shall land you. And yonder he comes," he added as the boat touched the bank and Romeo and Fairy bounded ashore.