“You remember that picnic, the trolley picnic to Alford. He sat next to me coming home, and—”
“And what?”
“There were only—four on the seat, and he—he sat very close, and told me some more about himself: how he had been alone ever since he was a little boy, and—how hard it had been. Then he asked how long ago father died, and if I remembered, and if I missed him still.”
“I don't quite understand, dear, how that—”
“You didn't hear the way he spoke, mother.”
“What else, Lucy?”
“He has always looked at me very much across the church, and whenever I have met him it has not been so much what—he said as—his manner. You have not known what his manner was, and you have not heard how he spoke, nor seen his eyes when—he looked at me—”
“Yes, dear, you are right. I have not. Then you have thought he was in love with you?”
“Sometimes he has made me think so, mother,” Lucy sobbed.
Mrs. Ayres gazed pitifully at the girl. “Then when you thought perhaps he was not you felt badly.”