"Modern boarders," he explained politely, "are unpleasant people who come from the city to enjoy the country, and who, having no real homes, pay farmers to lodge and feed them for a few days of vacation and dyspepsia."
"You mean is this a tavern?" she asked, unsmiling.
"No, I don't. I mean, will you let me live here a little while as though I were a guest, and then permit me to settle my reckoning in accordance with your own views upon the subject?"
She hesitated as though perplexed.
"Suppose you ask your father or mother," he suggested.
"They are absent."
"Will they return this morning?"
"I don't know exactly when they expect to return."
"Well, couldn't you assume the responsibility?" he asked, smiling.
She looked at him for a few moments, and it seemed to him as though, in the fearless gravity of her regard, somehow, somewhere, perhaps in the curled corners of her lips, perhaps in her pretty and unusual eyes, there lurked a little demon of laughter. Yet it could not be so; there were only serenity and a child's direct sweetness in the gaze.
