them. He had taken a smaller and cheaper room down the street in a boarding house kept by a widow named Feeley. But he continued to visit the Dillons practically every day. He was still almost one of the family.
Harold loved Pop Dillon as if the latter were his own grandfather as well as Jane's. As for Jane, though he had long regarded her as a sister, he had for a year or two back realized that his attitude toward her had changed to something warmer. In his candid moments he now acknowledged to himself that he was in love with her, would ask her to marry him if he could ever settle down into a good job so that he could support her. As for Jane, she was somewhat uncertain of her true feelings toward Harold. Her attitude was half that of a mother and half of—well, she didn't quite know. She liked being with him. He was so lively and good-natured and eager to help her. But he was also such a harum-scarum, such a kid. She did so wish he would land a good job and stick to it, grow up.
Pop Dillon, looking on from his majestic eminence of sixty-four years, was vaguely uneasy about the two young people of his heart. He supposed some day they would fall in love with each other, if they weren't in that beatific state already. He half hoped for it and half feared it. He would certainly not consent to Speedy thinking seriously of marrying Jane in the boy's present precarious financial and business position. Darn him, why didn't he go to work in earnest like other young fellows!
