"Not a bit!"
She "peeked around" and satisfied her curiosity to the full.
"I am convinced," she said at last, "that in all this domestic artistry there is the touch of a feminine hand. Who was, or who is,—the lady?"
"I understand Mrs. Horsfal furnished and arranged this home. She lived here every summer before she died. That made it very easy for me. All I had to do was to keep everything in its place as she had left it."
Miss Grant was enraptured with the library. I thought she would never finish scanning the titles and the authors.
"This is a positive book-wormery," she exclaimed.
She chose a volume which revealed her very masculine taste in literature, although, after all, it did not astonish me greatly but merely confirmed what I already had known to be so;—that, while boys and men scorn to read girls' and women's books, yet girls and women seem to prefer the books that are written more especially for boys and men and the more those books revel and riot in sword play, impossible adventure and intrigue, the more they like them.
"Might I ask if you would be so good as to return my visit?" said my visitor at last. "You saved my life, you know, and you have some right to take a small friendly interest in me.
"If you could spare the time, I should be pleased to have you over for tea to-morrow evening and to spend a sociable hour with us afterwards;—that is, if you care for tea, sociability and—music."
I looked across at her,—so straight, so ladylike, so beautiful; almost as tall as I and so full of bubbling mischief and virile charm.