"Oh, nobody—just a man with whom I have a—a sort of acquaintance," replied Cleland.
"Was that his boy who kept looking at me all the while in the station, Daddy?"
"I didn't notice. Come, dear, jump in."
So he took Stephanie back to the house where instruction in the three R's awaited her, with various extras and embellishments suitable for the education of the daughter of John William Cleland.
The child crept up close to him in the car, holding tightly to his arm with both of hers.
"I'm lonely for Jim," she whispered. "I——" but speech left her suddenly in the lurch.
"You're going to make me proud of you, darling; aren't you?" he murmured, looking down at her.
The child merely nodded. Grief for the going of her first boy had now left her utterly dumb.
CHAPTER VII
There is a serio-comic, yet charming, sort of tragedy—fortunately only temporary—in the attachment of a little girl for an older boy. It often bores him so; and she is so daintily in earnest.