Grinnidge, getting up to fill his pipe: “That was a pleasant thing to do.”
Ransom: “I told her that if it amused her, to keep on; I would be only too glad to give her all—the hints I could, but that I oughtn’t to encourage her. She seemed a good deal hurt. I fancied at the time that she thought I was tired of having her with me so much.”
Miss Reed: “Oh, did you, indeed!” To Miss Spaulding, who bends an astonished glance upon her from the piano: “The man in this book is the most conceited creature, Nettie. Play chords—something very subdued—ah!”
Miss Spaulding: “What are you talking about, Ethel?”
Ransom: “That was at night; but the next day she came up smiling, and said that if I didn’t mind she would keep on—for amusement; she wasn’t a bit discouraged.”
Miss Reed: “Oh!—Go on, Nettie; don’t let my outbursts interrupt you.”
Ransom: “I used to fancy sometimes that she was a little sweet on me.”
Miss Reed: “You wretch!—Oh, scales, Nettie! Play scales!”
Miss Spaulding: “Ethel Reed, are you crazy?”
Ransom, after a thoughtful moment: “Well, so it went on for the next seven or eight weeks. When we weren’t sketching in the meadows, or on the mountain-side, or in the old punt on the pond, we were walking up and down the farmhouse piazza together. She used to read to me when I was at work. She had a heavenly voice, Grinnidge.”