"But you see I swore I'd bring Uncle Sam back on a visit. I had it all planned out that Uncle Sam and I would take in a show to-night...."
"I don't reckon Uncle Sam would mind going to the theatre, Mr. Allen. You might ask him," said the girl very frankly.
"Good for you, Uncle Sam,—you are a peach, after all. Hal may be disappointed, but, believe me, I am not. I wish you would tell me your name."
Jo was looking much happier now. He had forgotten what Hal would say when he got home Uncle Samless,—but really her hair and eyes were enough to make him forget and her voice was very musical with its Southern accent.
"Page Carter," she told him, "and I suppose you want to know the whys and wherefores of Uncle Sam's business. Well, you can probably tell from my name that I am a Virginian and from my occupation that I am poor, and if you could see my brain at work or my poor attempts at sewing, you would see why I had to choose this way of making a living. Yes, I had to do it. You see, my mother and father are dead and I could not accept my friends' kind invitations to come and be their barnacles."
"Miss Carter, you need not worry about the workings of your brain. That was a dandy bluff you put up. I could see you with white hair, seated at a desk, writing Hal about your boyhood scrapes. Let's make it a supper before the theatre. Are you game?"
"Sure," she said.
Jo noticed she did not have to look in a mirror to make her hat becoming.
"Mr. Allen, your son has written me so much about you that I feel as though I knew you. That is very bromidic, but it is so."
Jo never knew what they had for dinner and Page Carter did not get many of the lines of the play. She had always been strong for black hair and grey eyes. She knew, too, that he was successful from his clothes and Hal's remarks about the Mercer, and he surely was an amusing companion. Hal interested her. New York wasn't much when you were in it by yourself and it was very evident that Jo liked her and his grey eyes were beginning to look....