She shook her head. "No, I almost always go by myself. My girl friend, she goes with me sometimes."
He sighed with relief. "They got good picture shows in Frederick. I go 'most every Saturday night."
"But you don't live right in Frederick, you said."
He seized the chance to tell her about himself.
"Oh, my, no. I live back in the mountains. Say, I just wish you could see my place. It's up high, and you can look out, ever so far—everything kind of drops away below, and you can see the river and the woods, and it takes different colours, 'cording to the season and the weather. Some days when I'm ploughing or disking and I get up on the ridge, it's so high up and far away seems like I'm on top the whole world. It's lonesome—it's off the pike, you see—but I like it. Here in the city everything crowds on you so close."
She had listened with the keenest interest.
"That's so. It must be grand to get off by yourself and have plenty room. I get so tired of that squinched-in, narrow, stuffy shop; and the place where I board is worse. I don't make enough to have a room by myself. There's two other girls in with me, and seems like we're always under-foot to each other. And there isn't any parlour, and we got only one bureau for the three of us, and you can guess what a mess that is. And the closet's about as big as a pocket handkerchief."
"Ain't you got any folks?"
The blue eyes held a sudden mist.
"Nobody but Miss Tolman, and she's only a distant cousin. Ma died two years ago. She used to sew, but she wasn't strong, and we never could get ahead."