"Now, Mary," said the brown-haired maid, bending forward and looking up archly in the face of her friend, "let us drop this nonsense of pretending to look for trailing arbutus, when you know, just as well as I do, that it will be a week, if not two, before there will be a sprig of it in bloom; and I know, just as well as you do, that you called me out for this walk to tell me something about Dorn Hackett, and for nothing else. Isn't that so, now?"
"Yes, you sharp little thing. You have guessed rightly, as usual. I have received another letter from Dorn."
"A letter from Dorn? The first for over a year, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well, dear, it must seem almost like getting one from a stranger."
"Whalers have so few chances to write home."
"He has been gone a great while, hasn't he?"
"It seems so to me, I confess. And three years really is a long time, isn't it?"
"Dear me, yes. I wouldn't let Lem go away from me that way. Who knows but what he might marry somebody else while he was gone? Have you never been afraid that Dorn would?"
"Oh, no, Ruth. Never. He loves me too well for that, I know."