Inexpressibly shocked, Dorothy looked up to the portrait over the mantel half fearfully, but there was no change in the stern, malicious old face.
“You’re afraid of him, aren’t you?” asked Dick, with a hearty laugh.
“I always have been,” admitted Dorothy. “He scared me the first time we came here—it was at night, and raining.”
“I’ve known him to scare people in broad daylight, and they weren’t always women either. He used to be a pleasant old codger, but he got over it, and after he learned to swear readily, he was a pretty tough party to buck up against. It took nerve to stay here when uncle was in a bad mood, but most people have more nerve than they think they have. You haven’t told me your name yet.”
“Mrs. Carr—Dorothy Carr.”
“Pretty name,” remarked Dick, with evident admiration. “If you don’t mind, I’ll call you ‘Dorothy’ till the train goes back. It will be something for me to remember in the desert waste of my empty years to come.”
A friendly, hospitable impulse seized Mrs. Carr. “Why should you go?” she inquired, smiling. “If you’ve been in the habit of spending your Summers here, you needn’t change on our account. We’d be glad to have you, I’m sure. A dear old friend of my husband’s is already here.”
“Fine or superfine?”
“Superfine,” returned Dorothy, feeling very much as though the clock had been turned back twenty years or more and she was at a children’s party again.
“You can bet your sweet life I’ll stay,” said Dick, “and if I bother you at any time, just say so and I’ll skate out, with no hard feelings on either side. You may need me when the rest of the bunch gets here.”