matter much. Ah, here was a gray-eyed girl that he did not dread to
meet. And she had not forgotten him!

An hour later he was waiting for her in the lower hallway. Luckily she
came down alone, so they had the hall seat to themselves for those first
few minutes. She was the same charming Jane that he had known of old.
There was an added dignity in the way she carried her shapely little
head, a deeper sweetness in the curve of her thin lips. Perhaps her
manner was a little subdued, too; but, after all those years with Mrs.
Philo Allen, why not?

"How nice of you," she was saying, "to hunt us up and surprise us in
this fashion. Auntie has been expecting you at home for weeks, you know,
but when Mabel's rose-cold developed she decided that we must go to the
seashore, even though we did die of lonesomeness. And here we find
you--or you find us. The sea air will make Mabel presentable in a day or
so, we hope."

"I'm sure I hope so, too," he assented, without enthusiasm. Really, he
did not see the necessity of dragging in Mabel. Nor did he understand
why Mrs. Allen had expected him, or why Jane should assume that he had
hunted them up. Now that she had assumed it, though, he could hardly
explain that it was an accident. He asked how long they had remained
abroad.

"Oh, ages! There was an age in France, while Mabel was perfecting her
accent; then there was another age in Italy, where Mabel took
voice-culture and the old masters; and yet another age in Germany, while
Mabel struggled with the theory of music. Our year in Devon was not
quite an age; we went there for the good of Mabel's complexion."