Jack laughed good-naturedly. "I don't blame you for wondering at my being here; but I've been here before," he said, willing to pay back the Doctor in his own coin.
"The deuce you have!" exclaimed the Doctor. "I say, Johnny, are we growing old that these young people get ahead of us so easily?"
"I don't know how you feel, Dick, but I 'm as young as Jack to-night."
"That 's right, Papa Clyde," said Hazel, approvingly, softly patting her father on the head; "and, Jack, you 're a dear to come up here to see us, for you 've just as much right as the Doctor."
The Doctor pretended to grumble:--"Come to see you, indeed, you superior young woman--you indeed! As if there weren't any other girls in the world or on Mount Hunger but you and Rose--much you know about it."
"Well, I 'd like to know who you came to see, if not us?" laughed Hazel, sure of her ultimate triumph.
"Why, my dear Ruth Ford, to be sure."
"Ruth Ford!" they exclaimed in amazement.
"Why not Ruth Ford? You did n't suppose I would come away up here into the wilds of Vermont in the dead of winter, did you? just to see--" But Hazel laid her hand on his mouth.
"Stop teasing, do," she pleaded, "and tell us how you knew our Ruth."