He was off, and the mother lay on the couch watching the two girls and wishing with all her heart that it were so that her children might have these two fine young people for friends. But of course such things could not very well be in this world of stern realities and multitudinous conventionalities. What, for instance, would be said in the social set to which the Grahams belonged if it were known that some of their intimate friends lived in a barn? No, such things did not happen even in books, and the mother lay still and sighed. She heard the chatter of the two girls.
"You're coming home with me to stay over Sunday pretty soon. Sidney said he would fix it all up with your mother pretty soon. We'll sleep together and have the grandest times. Mother likes me to have friends stay with me, but most of the girls I know are off at boarding-school now, and I'm dreadfully lonesome. We have tennis-courts and golf links and a bowling-alley. Do you play tennis? And we can go out in the car whenever we like. It's going to be grand. I'll show you my dog and my pony I used to ride. He's getting old now, and I'm too big for him, but I love him just the same. I have a saddle-horse, but I don't ride much. I'd rather go motoring with Sid----"
And so she rattled on, and the mother sighed for her little girl who was being tempted by a new and beautiful world, and had not the wherewithal to enter it, even if it were possible for her to do so.
Out in the sunset the car was speeding back again with the seats full, Doris chirping gleefully at the ride, for her fat legs had grown very weary with the long walk through the meadow and Shirley had been almost sorry she had taken her along.
The boys were shouting all sorts of questions about dogs and chickens and cars and a garden, and Graham was answering them all good-humoredly, now and then turning around to throw back a pleasant sentence and a smile at the quiet girl with the happy eyes sitting in the back seat with her arm around her little sister.
There was nothing notable about the ride to remember. It was just one of those beautiful bits of pleasantness that fit into the mosaic of any growing friendship, a bit of color without which the whole is not perfect. Shirley's part in it was small. She said little and sat listening happily to the boys' conversation with Graham. She had settled it with her heart that morning that she and the young man on that front seat had nothing in future to do with each other, but it was pleasant to see him sitting there talking with her brothers. There was no reason why she should not be glad for that, and glad he was not a snob. For every time she looked on his clean, frank face, and saw his nice gray eyes upon her, she was surer that he was not a snob.