Colonel Parton, a tall, gray-mustached man, accompanied by two hunting dogs, hailed him: "Not going with the boys? Ah, I forgot your knee. Too bad! Jack's got the dandiest new fishing-rod you ever saw."
"As if I didn't know it," growled Maurice, us the colonel entered the bank.
The next person to accost him was Miss Celia Fair. She hadn't any bank business, but seeing Maurice as she passed, stopped to speak to him. She sat down beside him and tried in her pretty, soft way to cheer him.
"Don't look so gloomy, dear; you know if you are careful you will soon be all right again," she said.
At this Maurice poured forth all his disappointment at not being able to go with the Parton boys on their excursion down the bay.
"I am just as sorry for you as I can be," said Celia, clasping her hands in her lap—such slender hands—and looking far away as if she were tired of everything near by. It was only for a moment, then she said with a little laugh, "You can't possibly understand, Maurice, but I shouldn't mind a sprained knee in the least; I think I could even enjoy it, if I hadn't any more responsibility than you have."
"But you don't care to go fishing," he suggested.
"Oh, yes, I do; I like to fish." With a smile she said good-by, and went away.
After this Maurice settled down into deeper despondency than before. He had refused an invitation to drive, hid treated with bitter scorn Katherine's suggestion that he might like to go out to the creek with her and Blossom. "You could ride in the stage, you know, and have to walk only the least little bit," she said.
"Thank you; it is such fun to throw stones in the water," he replied, with elaborate politeness.