“They are dying to. I only hope they won’t tear things wide open at camp. They are terribly hoydenish at times.”
“Mr. Tucker, tell me: did you really get mother to give up White Sulphur just to chaperone the twins and Page?”
“You ask her! I think she thinks she did.”
“I believe I’ll call you Mr. Machiavelli Tucker.”
“Don’t flatter me so yet. Wait until I accomplish the seemingly impossible of making your mother decide of her own accord that your sister had better not come out yet.”
“Can you do that, too?”
“I don’t want to sound conceited but I believe I can. This is our secret, so don’t tell a soul that we have any hand in this matter. Just let Douglas think it is fortune smiling on her.”
“All right, but nothing can ever make me forget your kindness!” and Nan held his hand with both of hers with no more trace of shyness than Hiram G. Parker might have shown in dancing a german.
“What on earth have you done to make Nan so eternally grateful?” demanded Dum Tucker, coming suddenly around a spur of rock on the mountain path where her father had accosted Nan.