I am, very respectfully,
PAUL COURTLAND.
He mailed the letter that night and then studied hard till three o'clock
in the morning.
The next morning's mail brought him a dainty little note from Gila's
mother, inviting him to a quiet family dinner with them on Friday
evening. He frowned when he read it. He didn't care for the large,
painted person, but perhaps there was more good in her than he knew. He
would have to go and find out. It might even be that she would be a help
in case Stephen Marshall's mother did not pan out.
CHAPTER X
Mother Marshall stood by the kitchen window, with her cheek against a
boy's old soft felt hat, and she looked out into the gathering dusk for
Father. The hat was so old and worn that its original shape and color
were scarcely distinguishable, and there was one spot where Mother
Marshall's tears had washed some of the grime away into deeper stains
about it. It was only on days when Father was off to town on errands
that she allowed herself the momentary weakness of tears.
So she had stood in former years looking out into the dusk for her son
to come whistling home from school. So she had stood the day the awful
news of his fiery death had come, while Father sat in his rush-bottomed
chair and groaned. She had laid her cheek against that old felt hat and
comforted herself with the thought of her boy, her splendid boy, who had
lived his short life so intensely and wonderfully.
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