Miss Green smiled and the Professor shifted uneasily in his chair. Presently Miss Green rose.
"It's time for your buttermilk, Edwin, and you and I shall have some tea, Miss Molly," she added as she slipped out of the room.
"Tell me a little about yourself, Miss Molly," observed the Professor, when they were left alone. "Did you have a pleasant summer and how is the old orchard?"
"Oh, the orchard was most shamefully neglected," replied Molly. "Simply a mass of weeds and the apples left rotting on the ground all this fall, so mother writes. William, our colored man, cut down the worst of the weeds with a scythe last summer and I kept the ground cleared where the hammock hangs. It's been such a rainy summer, I suppose that's why things grew so rank, but I'm sorry the old gentleman is neglecting his property after making such a noble start."
The Professor laughed.
"You have made the acquaintance of the owner, then?" he asked.
"Oh no, we have never even learned his name, but I feel quite sure he is very old. Sometimes I seem to see him in the orchard, an old, old man leaning on a stick. I think he is old and eccentric because a young man would never have bought property he had never seen."
"Can't a young man be eccentric?"
"Oh, yes, but mother and my brothers and sisters, all of us believe this man is old from something the agent said. He told mother that the new owner of the orchard had bought it because he was looking for a retired spot in which to spend his old age."
Again the Professor laughed and the color rose in his face and spread over his cheeks and forehead.