On their way to the restaurant, Gray said: "Pa and Ma and Allie Briskow and the tutoress have gone to the mountains--Ma's beloved mountains--and they appear to be living up to her expectations. The mountains, I mean. The old dear writes me every week, and her letters are wonderful, even outside of the spelling. She hasn't lost a single illusion. She has a soul for adventure, has Ma; she's hunting for caves now--keeps her ears open to hear if the ground sounds hollow; wants to find a mysterious cavern and explore it, with her heart in her mouth. She revels in the clean, green foliage and the spring brooks. She says the trees are awful crowded in places and there's no dust on them." "And Allie has a tutor!" "The best money could secure. And, by the way, you wouldn't have known the girl after you got through with her that day. That was only the beginning, too. She fills the eye now, and she's growing." "_Growing?_" Gray chuckled. "Not physically, but mentally, psychologically, intellectually." "I said she had possibilities." "Yes. More than I gave her credit for, but what they are, where they will lead her, I don't know. I'm a foolish person, Miss Parker, for I take an intense interest in the affairs of other people, especially my friends. My favorite dissipation is to share the troubles of those whom I like, and right now I'm quite as worried over Allie as her father is. You see, she has outdistanced her parents already; the dream part is wearing off and her new life is a reality. She is confronted with the grim and appalling necessity of adapting herself to a completely new and bewildering set of conditions. I'm not sure that she will be equal to it." "I presume you mean that she is sensitive." "Supersensitive! And ambitious! That's the trouble. If she were dull and conceited she could be both happy and contented. But she's bright, and she lacks egotism, so she'll never be either. Adversity would temper a girl like her; prosperity may--spoil her." "There is a boy, too, isn't there?" "Oh, Buddy! He's away at school. He'll make a hand, or--well, if he doesn't, I'll beat the foolishness out of him. I've assumed complete responsibility for Buddy, and he'll be a credit to me." There was a tone in Gray's voice when he spoke of the Briskows that gave Barbara Parker a wholly new insight into his character; it was with a feeling that she knew him and liked him better that she said: "You think a lot of those nesters, don't you?" "More than they believe, and more than I would have thought possible," he readily declared. "I'm a lonesome institution. There's nobody dependent upon me; I owe no bills, no gratitude, and I've canceled the obligations that others owe me. You've no idea how unnecessary I am. It gives me a pleasing sense of importance, therefore, to feel that I fill a place in somebody's affairs."