Page:The Sick-A-Bed Lady.djvu/295

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HEART OF THE CITY

almonds. His heightened color made him look very angry.

"Oh, I trust I was n't rude," begged the Wood land Girl. Then as the Journalist s galloping laughter slowed down into the gentlest sort of a single- foot smile, her eyes grew abruptly big and dark with horror. "Why, I never thought of it," she stammered, "but I suppose that what I have just said about the man in the woods and my com- ing to New York is husband hunting.

The Journalist considered the matter very care fully. " N o," he answered at last, " I don't think I should call it husband hunting, nor yet, exactly, the search for the Holy Grail ; but, really now, I think on the whole I should call it more of a sacrament than a sport"

"O h," whispered the Girl with a little sigh of relief.

It must have been fully fifteen minutes before the Journalist spoke to her again. Then, in the midst of his salad course, he put down his fork and asked quite inquisitively: "Are n't there any men at all up in your own special Maine woods?"

"Oh, yes," the Girl acknowledged with a little crinkle of her nose, "there's Peter."

"Who s Peter? "he insisted.

"Why, Peter," she explained, "is the Phila-

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