Love stories; New England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
Soon he saw her--he felt at once it was she--looking about undecidedly
as she came. She was a short, plump girl of seventeen or eighteen, at
present bent a little sideways from the weight of the suitcase she was
carrying. Philip strode forward and seized the suitcase with one hand
while he lifted his hat with the other.
"Here, you let that alone!" said the girl decidedly, her round eyes
snapping.
"Isn't this Miss Trueman?"
"Why, yes, it is," she returned, but she still looked suspicious and
clung to her suitcase. Nobody need think she wasn't up to all the
tricks. "Did my aunt send you to meet me?"
"She certainly did."
"Then you know her name. What's her name?" The upward look was so
childlike in its shrewdness that it stirred the spirit of mischief.
"Why--let me see, Lucilla, isn't it?"
"You give me that suitcase this minute." The girl pulled on the handle
with a muscular little hand.
"Why, Veronica," Philip's smile became a laugh. "Santa Veronica, what a
very unsaintlike voice and expression you're using."
She laughed, too, then, and relinquished her burden. "You do know me.
Who are you?"
"Miss Burridge's man-of-all-work. Name, Philip Barrison."
"So she gave you such a job as this. How did you pick me out?"
"That wild look around for the transfer office." They were now moving
toward it.
"It wasn't wild. I didn't need you at all. Aunt Priscilla needn't have
bothered. I have a tongue in my head and money in my pocket, and Puppa
said that's all anybody needs if she has any brains."
"But I have to do what my employer orders, you see," replied Philip.
Veronica looked him over. Fresh from the barber and in correct summer
garb, he was an extremely good-looking object.
"Oh, yes, it isn't your fault," she returned generously, "but is it a
swell place Aunt Priscilla's got?" She looked him over again while he
stopped at the transfer window and checked her trunk.
"The Wayside Inn," replied Philip with dignity.
"Well, I've come to help her," said the girl. "But I've never done any
serving. I haven't any uniform or anything like that."
"It isn't necessary. Look at me. I don't look like a footman--or a
butler--or anything like that, do I?"
"No," said Veronica, her round eyes very serious. "You look like
a--like a common--gentleman."
"Thank you, Miss Trueman. I'll try to deserve your praise."
Philip took her and her suitcase across town in a cab, and aboard the
little steamer, and found the best spot he could for them to sit.
"Puppa says this bay is noted for its picturesqueness," said Veronica,
when they were settled.
"Quite right," returned Philip, putting in her lap one of the magazines
he had bought on the wharf.
"No, thank you," she returned. "I shan't read. I'm going to look.
Puppa'll expect me to tell him all about it. He was delighted at my
having a chance to come to the seashore. He thought it would do my
health so much good."
Philip regarded her round cheeks, round eyes, and round, rosy mouth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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