"
She slipped around the bench and dropped down beside him.
"I was coming out the avenue and spied you mooning over here by yourself.
What's the trouble?"
"No trouble at all. Just stopped to get my wind a bit--and watch the
sunset."
"I think you are working too hard." She looked at him with anxious
solicitude. "I've a good notion to put you on buttermilk again."
"Good work! Put me on anything you like except dried peaches and
wienies."
"And you need more recreation," Rose persisted. "It's not good for
anybody to work all day and go to school at night. What's the matter with
us getting Cass and Fan Loomis and going down to Fontaine Ferry
to-night?"
"Can't do it," said Quin with ill-concealed pride. "Got a date with Miss
Eleanor Bartlett."
Rose sat silent for a moment, stirring the dead leaves with her shabby
boot; then she turned and laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Quin," she said, "I am worried sick about Nell and Harold Phipps."
Quin, who had been trying to beguile a squirrel into believing that a
pebble was a nut, looked up sharply.
"What do you mean?" he said. "She hasn't seen him since last summer, and
she never mentions his name.
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