“Can you give me her exact address? I want to write to her.”
But Em had gone into the next room.
When food was on the table she knelt down before the fire, turning the cakes, babbling restlessly, eagerly, now of this, now of that. She was glad to see him—Tant Sannie was coming soon to show her her new baby—he must stay on the farm now, and help her. And Waldo himself was well content to eat his meal in silence, asking no more questions.
“Gregory is coming back next week,” she said; “he will have been gone just a hundred and three days tomorrow. I had a letter from him yesterday.”
“Where has he been?”
But his companion stooped to lift a cake from the fire.
“How the wind blows! One can hardly hear one’s own voice,” she said. “Take this warm cake; no one’s cakes are like mine. Why, you have eaten nothing!”
“I am a little weary,” he said; “the wind was mad tonight.”
He folded his arms, and rested his head against the fireplace, whilst she removed the dishes from the table. On the mantelpiece stood an inkpot and some sheets of paper. Presently he took them down and turned up the corner of the tablecloth.
“I will write a few lines,” he said; “till you are ready to sit down and talk.”