u, at all. And if her father and mother are like
Miss Mabel, you are very wrong. I like her very much."

"You would try to like any one, Mother."

"I did not have to try to like her. And I was a little prejudiced, too,
at first. She was so wealthy, and an only child; I feared she might be
conceited and spoiled. But she isn't."

"Not conceited! Humph!"

"No, not really. At first she seemed a trifle distant, and I thought her
haughty; but, afterward, when her strangeness and constraint had worn
away, she was simple and unaffected and delightful. And she is very
pretty, isn't she."

"Yes."

"She told me a great deal about herself. She has been through Vassar and
has traveled a great deal. This is the first summer since her graduation
which she has not spent abroad. She and I talked of Rome and Florence.
I--I told her of the month I spent in Italy when you were a baby,
Roscoe."

"You did not tell her anything more, Mother? Anything she should not
know?"

"Boy!" reproachfully.

"Pardon me, Mother. Of course you didn't. Did she tell you why she
called on us--on you, I mean?"

"Yes, in a way. I imagine--though she did not say so--that you are
responsible for that. She and Nellie Dean seem to be well acquainted,
almost friendly, which is odd, for I can scarcely think of two girls
more different. But she likes Nellie, that is evident, and Nellie and
George have told her about you and me."

"I see. And so she was curious concerning the interesting invalid.
Probably anything even mildly interesting is a godsend to her, down
here. Did she mention the Shore Lane rumpus?"

"Yes. Although I mentioned it first. It was plain that she could not
understand your position in the matter, Roscoe, and I explained it as
well as I could. I told her that you felt the Lane was a necessity to
the townspeople, and that, under the circumstances, you could not sell.
I told her how deeply you sympathized with her mother--"

"Did you tell her that?"

"Why, yes. It is true, isn't it?"

"Humph! Mildly so, maybe. What more did she say?"

"She said she thought she understood better now. I told her about you,
Boy, and what a good son you had been to me. How you had sacrificed
your future and your career for my sake. Of course I could not go into
particulars, at all, but we talked a great deal about you, Roscoe."

"That must have been deliriously interesting--to her."

"I think it was. She told me of your helping her home through the s