Hopper has been telling you I am a confirmed invalid.
Indeed I am almost well now, and I need Wilson about as much as I need a
perambulator, but I knew if I did not bring him, my mother would give up
Bar Harbor, and insist on burying herself with me, either here or at
some other doleful spot, stagnation having been prescribed for me. Oh,
well, I don't mind the quiet," he continued, leaning his broad shoulders
against the pillar, and pulling at a bit of the St. John's wort, for he
had thrown it down in a straggling heap on the floor of the porch. "I'm
at work on--on a book," he said with a boyish blush.
"Yes," I replied, smiling. "Mrs. Hopper told me that there was 'an
orther,' in Wauchittic."
"And that was what Mrs. Bangs told me the other day!" he declared
audaciously. And then we both laughed with the foolish gaiety of youth,
that rids itself thus of embarrassment.
"It is my first book," he confessed.
"And mine," I said.
Our eyes met a little wistfully, as if each were striving to read
whether the other had gone through the same burning enthuiasms for work,
the same loving belief in its success, the same despondent hours when it
seemed an utter failure, devoid of sense or interest, and then, somehow,
we felt suddenly a mutual confidence, a sense that we knew each other
well, the instant _camaraderie_ of two voyagers who find that they have
sailed the same seas, passed through the same dangers, and stopped at
the same ports.
Pages:
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62