"I'll keep him while I'm here, with pleasure."
"That will be for a long time, I hope."
"You're very kind. I hardly know. My aunt must settle that."
"I'll settle it with her- at a quarter to seven." And Ralph looked
at his watch again.
"I'm glad to be here at all," said the girl.
"I don't believe you allow things to be settled for you."
"Oh yes; if they're settled as I like them."
"I shall settle this as I like it," said Ralph. "It's most
unaccountable that we should never have known you."
"I was there- you had only to come and see me."
"There? Where do you mean?"
"In the United States: in New York and Albany and other American
places."
"I've been there- all over, but I never saw you. I can't make it
out."
Miss Archer just hesitated. "It was because there had been some
disagreement between your mother and my father, after my mother's
death, which took place when I was a child. In consequence of it we
never expected to see you."
"Ah, but I don't embrace all my mother's quarrels- heaven forbid!"
the young man cried. "You've lately lost your father?" he went on more
gravely.
"Yes, more than a year ago.
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