“Where? Right here where we had to, Dick and I. By the way, he's coming home to-day.” He glanced at her face quickly as he said this, but her face showed only a frank pleasure.
“To-day? Good. Won't your mother be glad?”
“Yes. And some other people, too,” said Barney.
“And who, particularly?”
A sudden shyness seemed to seize the young man, but recovering himself, “Well, I guess I will, myself, a little. This is the first time he has ever been away. We never slept a night apart from each other as long as I can mind till he went to college last year. He used to put his arm just round me here,” touching his breast. “I'll tell you the first nights after he went I used to feel for him in the dark and be sick to find the place empty.”
“Well,” said the girl doubtfully, “I hope he won't be different. College does make a difference, you know.”
“Different! Dick! He'd better not. I'll thrash the daylights out of him. But he won't be different. Not to us, nor,” he added shyly, “to you.”
“Oh, to me?” She laughed lightly. “He had better not try any airs with me.”
“What would you do?” inquired Barney. “You couldn't take it out of his hide.”
“Oh, I'd fix him. I'd take him down,” she replied with a knowing shake of her head.