"Landry, careful, my dear boy; you'll make me prick my fingers.
Ah--there, you did."

He was all commiseration and self-reproach at once, and turned her hand
palm upwards, looking for the scratch.

"Um!" she breathed. "It hurts."

"Where now," he cried, "where was it? Ah, I was a beast; I'm so
ashamed." She indicated a spot on her wrist instead of her fingers, and
very naturally Landry kissed it again.

"How foolish!" she remonstrated. "The idea! As if I wasn't old enough
to be--"

"You're not so old but what you're going to marry me some day," he
declared.

"How perfectly silly, Landry!" she retorted. "Aren't you done with my
hand yet?"

"No, indeed," he cried, his clasp tightening over her fingers. "It's
mine. You can't have it till I say--or till you say that--some
day--you'll give it to me for good--for better or for worse."

"As if you really meant that," she said, willing to prolong the little
situation. It was very sweet to have this clean, fine-fibred young boy
so earnestly in love with her, very sweet that the lifting of her
finger, the mere tremble of her eyelid should so perturb him.

"Mean it! Mean it!" he vociferated. "You don't know how much I do mean
it. Why, Laura, why--why, I can't think of anything else."

"You!" she mocked. "As if I believed that. How many other girls have
you said it to this year?"

Landry compressed his lips.

"Miss Dearborn, you insult me."

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Laura, at last withdrawing her hand.

"And now you're mocking me. It isn't kind. No, it isn't; it isn't kind."

"I never answered your question yet," she observed.

"What question?"

"About your coming to see me when we were settled. I thought you wanted
to know."

"How about lunch?" said Page, from the doorway. "Do you know it's after
twelve?"

"The girl has got something for us," said Laura. "I told her about it.
Oh, just a pick-up lunch--coffee, chops. I thought we wouldn't bother
to-day. We'll have to eat in the kitchen."

"Well, let's be about it," declared Landry, "and finish with these
curtains afterward. Inwardly I'm a ravening wolf."

It was past one o'clock by the time that luncheon, "picked up" though
it was, was over. By then everybody was very tired. Aunt Wess'
exclaimed that she could not stand another minute, and retired to her
room. Page, indefatigable, declaring they never would get settled if
they let things dawdle along, set to work unpacking her trunk and
putting her clothes