“Because I don’t like to lay my brown head on a damp shoulder. Why don’t you do as I told you and dry that shirt sleeve? Hold it close to the fire, sir!”
“I won’t do it unless you tell me why you didn’t marry Dr. Flint.”
“Well, then, to keep you from catching your death of cold, I will tell you, but remember I have saved your life. It was—it was because—because he didn’t have sandy hair and a bad temper,” and Nance was enfolded in the despised shirt sleeves and found a very nice dry spot on which to lay her brown head.
The sun had set and twilight was upon them. The front door opened to admit the master of the house, but Molly was in ambush ready to catch him to keep him out of the library. Kizzie had started in to mend the fire but Molly stopped her.
“Never mind the fire, Kizzie. It is all right for such a warm evening. Give us tea in the den.”
“Why all of this mystery?” asked Edwin Green as he followed his wife back to the den, going on tiptoe as she demanded.
“Andy and Nance are in there.”
“Andy McLean! Fine! I want to see him. Won’t he be here to tea? I’ll go in and speak to him.”
“You’ll do no such thing! Edwin Green, you may be—in fact, are, a grand lecturer on English, but you have no practical sense. Don’t you know you might break in just at the wrong moment and Andy may get off to France without their making it up?”
“Making up what? Who making up: the Allies and the central powers?”