The heart that would not have been won by the naïvete of the speaker would have been stony indeed!
Howard Snelling flashed a tribute of honest admiration into the gentle old face.
"Dreams are cheap things," rambled on the little inventor. "Sometimes I figger the Lord gave 'em to those who didn't have much else, so'st to make 'em think they are kings. If you can dream there ain't a thing in all the world ain't yours."
The conversation had furnished Snelling with the opportunity to study more minutely the object on the table, and he now said with a motion of his hand toward it:
"Wouldn't it be rather nice if you had some netting of coarser mesh and which wouldn't corrode?"
"Oh, this screenin' ain't what I'd choose," returned Willie, "but 'twas all I had. I ripped it off the front door. Tiny didn't fancy my doin' it very well. 'Tain't often she's ruffled, an' even this time she didn't say much; still, I could see it didn't altogether please her."
"Tiny?" interpolated Mr. Snelling.
"My aunt, Miss Morton, who keeps house for Mr. Spence," explained Bob with proud directness.
"I wasn't aware you had relatives down here," the boat-builder observed, turning toward Robert Morton with interest. "I imagined you came to the Cape because of the Galbraiths."
"Oh, no. I didn't know the Galbraith's were here until the other day."