"What are you all laughing at?" demanded the girl, flushing and smiling about her.
"Oh, you did it twice!"
"I didn't say it, Mr. Raridan," she said, with dignity. "I never said that after I went North to school."
"Well, Belle," said Evelyn, "I'm heartily ashamed of you. After all we did in college to break you of it, you are at it again though you've been only a few months away from us."
"It's hopeless, I'm afraid," said Miss Warren. "You know, Evelyn, she said 'I-alls' when she first came to college."
They had their coffee on the veranda, where the lights from within made a pleasant dusk about them. Porter's heart was warm with the joy of Evelyn's home-coming. She had been away from him so much that he was realizing for the first time the common experience of fathers, who find that their daughters have escaped suddenly and inexplicably from girlhood into womanhood; and yet the girl heart in her had not lost its freshness nor its thirst for pleasure. She had carried off her little company charmingly; Porter had enjoyed it himself, and he felt young again in the presence of youth.
General Whipple had attached himself to one of the couples of young people that were strolling here and there in the grounds. Porter and Mrs. Whipple held the veranda alone; both were unconsciously watching Evelyn and Saxton as they walked back and forth in front of the house, talking gaily; and Porter smiled at the eagerness and quickness of her movements. Saxton's deliberateness contrasted oddly with the girl's light step. Such a girl must marry a man worthy of her; there could be no question of that; and for the first time the thought of losing her rose in his heart and numbed it.
Porter's cigar had gone out, a fact to which Mrs. Whipple called his attention.
"I've heard that it's a great compliment for a man to let his cigar go out when he's talking to a woman. But I don't believe my chatter was responsible for it this time." She nodded toward Evelyn, as if she understood what had been in his thought.
"She's very fine. Both handsome and sensible, and at our age we know how rare the combination is."