"Why, I wonder?"
"Why?" with a slightly-curious laugh. "There might be many reasons, I am sure. Boston spreads over a good deal of ground. Besides, you know I never spent a great deal of time in Boston, and I am not a society man. Why do you ask?"
"No reason in particular; only the lady is here, and I thought if you were old acquaintances, it would be pleasant to meet her."
"Here in South Plains! What in the world is she doing here?"
"Teaching music."
"I wonder if this is where she has hidden herself! I occasionally hear queries as to what has become of her, but I believe I never met a person who knew. No, I don't suppose there would be any mutual pleasure in a meeting. I may be said to be a stranger. I have not the least idea how she looks; and I may never have met her, though I think I did somewhere. I remember having a passing interest in seeing how a daughter of Sydney Benedict would look. He was a grand man, but I suspected that his daughter was a butterfly of fashion. She lived in the very centre of that sort of thing, and her father was supposed to have immense wealth. I suppose she is a poor, crushed little morsel, done up in crape and disappointment. I am always sorry for music-scholars who have to take broken-down ladies for teachers. Still, I don't know but I would like to shake hands with her for her father's sake. Have you met her?"
"I should say I had! but I don't believe you ever have. You couldn't draw such a queer picture of her as that, if you had ever seen her. She doesn't wear crape at all. Somebody told me she did not believe in mourning for people who had gone to heaven; at least, not in putting on black clothes and looking doleful, you know. And as to being crushed! why, uncle Harold, she is the brightest, sweetest, grandest girl I ever heard of in all my life."
"Possible!" said his uncle, with a good-humored laugh. "Why, my boy, she must be several years older than you! What does this mean?"
"Oh, nonsense!" was the impatient reply of the excited young man. "It is just as evident as can be, that you don't know what you are talking about. If you had been here this winter, and watched things work, and known the hand that she had in it all, why—look here! you wait until to-morrow; I can show you a few things, I fancy."
Whereupon he immediately closed his lips; and although his uncle pretended to be extremely curious, and to be unable to wait until morning for light, no hints or questions could draw out further information in the same direction.