Some of the younger people too seemed not to be blind to this new attractiveness. But it remained for Peter Van Loon to express the real effect produced, and he did it fully, as he suddenly turned to Hope from a long observation of Dorothea at her tea-table duties,—turned and said in that odd way of his,—
"I say, now, she'll get to be an awfully nice girl by and by, won't she, if she keeps on—on this track?"
Hope felt a little startled, though she couldn't help being amused at this queer remark of Peter's; but she quite agreed with it, and told him so; and then Peter said in the same emphatic way,—
"I've heard all about it—how you've stuck to her—from Kate—Kate Van der Berg; and I'd—I'd like to say, if you don't mind, that you're a trump, Miss Benham; and the other fellows think so too."