“I didn’t hear. I don’t know’s I’d blame her much if she did. He’s worth lookin’ at. Handsome a young feller as I’ve ever set eyes on. I don’t know’s I shan’t be fallin’ in love with him myself,” Nabby added, with a surprising affectation of kittenishness. Varunas seemed to find it surprising enough. He looked at her for a moment and then turned on his heel. “Where you goin’ now?” his wife demanded. “Down street--to buy you a lookin’ glass,” he retorted and slammed the door. This new change in Esther affected her relations with the visitor. She avoided him no longer. They were together a great deal, although, to be entirely honest, he was still the pursuer. Foster Townsend was not wholly satisfied with this condition of affairs. He liked young Covell well enough; for the matter of that it would have been hard not to like him. As Covell, Senior, wrote in his first letter, he possessed the knack of making people like him at first sight. Varunas, crotchety as he very often was, liked him immensely, although he refused to admit it to his wife, who was continually chanting praises. Townsend was a good judge of men and prided himself upon that faculty, so, although he found his friend’s son agreeable, witty, a fascinating talker and the best of company, he reserved his decision concerning what might lie beneath all these taking qualities until he should come to know him better. As he would have expressed it, he wanted time to find out how he “wore.” There were some objections already in his mind. He expressed one of them to Varunas, with whom he was likely to be as confidential as with any one except his niece--or, of course and at times, with Reliance Clark. “He’s almost too good looking,” he said. “I never saw one of those fellows yet--one so pretty that he looked as if he belonged in a picture book--who wasn’t spoiled by fool women. There are enough of that kind in Harniss who would like nothing better than the chance to spoil this one; that is plain enough already. And he doesn’t mind their trying--that is just as plain.”