The minutes flew like thought, and Willy was back in the house.
“I thought they dare not do it. You'll remember I told them so. Ah! ah! they find I was in the right.”
Willy was too much excited with his own reading of this latest incident to sit in one seat for two minutes together. He walked up and down the room, laughing sometimes, and sometimes pausing to pat his mother's head.
It was fortunate for Rotha that she had to busy herself with the preparations for Willy's supper, and that this duty rendered less urgent the necessity for immediate response to his remarks. Willy, on his part, was in no mood at present to indulge in niceties of observation, and Rotha's perturbation passed for some time unnoticed.
“Ralph will be back with us soon, let us hope,” he said. “There's no doubt but we do miss him, do we not?”
“Yes,” Rotha answered, leaning as much as possible over the fire that she was mending.
The tone of the reply made an impression on Willy. In a moment more he appeared to realize that there, had throughout been something unusual in the girl's demeanor.
“Not well, Rotha?” he asked in a subdued tone. It had flashed across his mind that perhaps her father was once more in some way the cause of her trouble.
“Oh, very well!” she answered, throwing up her head with a little touch of forced gayety.
“Why, there are tears in your eyes, girl. No? Oh, but there are!” They are tears of joy, he thought. She loves Ralph as a brother. “I laugh when I'm happy, Rotha; it seems that you cry.”