Afterward we'll spend the time on the porch."
"Thank you, Len. Whom are you going to have? I want to prepare my mind
for what is likely to happen."
Mrs. Burns mentioned her guests. "I've arranged them with special
reference to Dr. Leaver," she explained. "I think it will do him good,
just now, to have to exert himself a little bit. He seems well enough,
but absolutely uninterested in things or people,--except the children. He
spends hours with them. I'm going to put you next him, if I may."
"Please don't. I particularly want the chance to talk with Mr. Arthur
Chester about something I've found he can tell me. We never can get time
for it, and this will be just the chance. Give Miss Mathewson to Dr.
Leaver, and put some pretty girl on his other side."
"I will, if you prefer, of course," Ellen agreed promptly. She had
observed that, although she had taken pains to have them meet, Dr. Leaver
and Miss Ruston seemed to be in the habit of quietly avoiding each other.
But she was not the woman to ask her friend's confidence, since it was
not voluntarily given. She could only wonder why two people from the same
world, apparently so well suited to each other, should be so averse to
spending even a few moments together.
An hour later Charlotte, having dispatched considerable business,
bundling it out of the way as if it had suddenly become of no account,
was delving in a trunk for a frock.
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