" said Mrs. Durgin. "Well, I presume I do talk a good
deal about Jackson when I get goin', and I presume it's natural Cynthy
shouldn't want I should talk about Jeff before folks. Frank, a'n't you
goin' to wait for that plate of hot biscuit?--if she ever gits it here!"

"I guess I don't care for anything more," said Frank, and he got himself
out of the room more inarticulately than he need, Westover thought.

His, father followed his retreat with an eye of humorous intelligence. "I
guess Frank don't want to keep the young ladies waitin' a great while.
There's a church sociable over 't the Huddle," he explained to Westover.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" Mrs. Durgin put in. "Why didn't he say so."

"Well, the young folks don't any of 'em seem to want to talk about such
things nowadays, and I don't know as they ever did." Whitwell took
Westover into his confidence with a wink.

The biscuit that Cynthia brought in were burned a little on top, and Mrs.
Durgin recognized the fact with the question, "Did you get to studyin',
out there? Take one, do, Mr. Westover! You ha'n't made half a meal! If I
didn't keep round after her, I don't know what would become of us all.
The young ladies down at Boston, any of 'em, try to keep up with the
fellows in college?"

"I suppose they do in the Harvard Annex," said Westover, simply, in spite
of the glance with which Mrs. Durgin tried to convey a covert meaning. He
understood it afterward, but for the present his single-mindedness spared
the girl.

She remained to clear away the table, when the rest left it, and Westover
followed Mrs. Durgin into the parlor, where she indemnified herself for
refraining from any explicit allusion to Jeff before Cynthia. "The boy,"
she explained, when she had made him ransack his memory for every scrap
of fact concerning her son, "don't hardly ever write to me, and I guess
he don't give Cynthy very much news. I presume he's workin' harder than
ever this year. And I'm glad he's goin' about a little, from what you
say. I guess he's got to feelin' a little better. It did worry me for him
to feel so what you may call meechin' about folks. You see anything that
made you think he wa'n't appreciated?"

After Westover got back into his own room, some one knocked at his door,
and he found Whitwell outside. He scarcely asked him to come in, but
Whitwell scarcely needed the invitation. "Got everything you want? I told
Cynthy I'd come up and see after you; Frank won't be