“Oh, it is you!” said she.
An unreasonable feeling of elation arose in the young man’s breast.
“Did you think I wasn’t coming?” he inquired, with all the egotism of which he had been justly accused.
He did not wait for her reply; but proceeded with considerable humor to describe his previous unsuccessful attempts to see her.
“I suppose,” he added, “Mrs. Solomon Black has kindly warned you against me?”
She could not deny it; so smiled instead.
“Well,” said the young man, “I give you my word I’m not a villain: I neither drink, steal, nor gamble. But I’m not a saint, after the prescribed Brookville pattern.”
He appeared rather proud of the fact, she thought. Aloud she said, with pardonable curiosity:
“What is the Brookville pattern? I ought to know, since I am to live here.”
At this he dropped his bantering tone.