He put his cup and saucer on the ground, while his quizzical eyes, which seemed to laugh even when his face was serious, turned toward Molly. And Molly was well worth looking at that afternoon, although she herself was much dissatisfied with her appearance. Her auburn hair had almost slipped down her back. Her blue linen shirtwaist was decidedly blousey at the waist line. “It’s because I haven’t enough shape to keep it down,” she was wont to complain. Her cheeks were glowing and her eyes as calmly blue as the summer skies.
“Perhaps we’d better start on,” said Nance uneasily. She always felt an inexplicable shyness in the presence of men, and her friends had been known to nickname her “old maid.”
But before Professor Green could protest that he was only too glad to have his bashful brother make the acquaintance of three charming college girls, Judy, ever on the alert, exclaimed, “Look, there he comes around the side of the hill.”
The Professor rose and signaled with his hat, chuckling to himself, as he watched his youthful brother pause irresolutely on the hillside.
“Come on, Dodo,” he shouted, making a trumpet of his hands.
“I believe not this afternoon, thank you,” Dodo trumpeted back. “I have an important engagement at six.”
The girls could not keep from laughing.
“It’s a shame to frighten the poor soul like that,” exclaimed Molly. “We’ll start back, Professor, and leave him in peace.”
But the Professor was a man of determination, and had made up his mind to bring his shy brother into the presence of ladies that afternoon, very attractive ladies at that, of George’s own age, with simple, unaffected manners, calculated to make a shy young man forget for the moment that he had an affliction of agonizing diffidence.
“George,” called the professor, running a little way down the hillside, “come back and don’t be a fool.”