“Really?” cried the girl.  “That’s charming!”

“Delightful!” said the mother, moved by the same impulse, apparently.

“Yes,” said Jeff.  “You ought to hear him talk.  I’ll introduce him to you after breakfast, if you like.”

“Oh, we should only be too happy,” said the mother, and her daughter, from her inflection, knew that she would be willing to defer her happiness.

But Jeff did not.  “Mr. Whitwell!” he called out, and Whitwell came across the grass to the edge of the veranda.  “I want to introduce you to Mrs. Vostrand—­and Miss Vostrand.”

Whitwell took their slim hands successively into his broad, flat palm, and made Mrs. Vostrand repeat her name to him.  “Strangers at Lion’s Head, I presume?” Mrs. Vostrand owned as much; and he added:  “Well, I guess you won’t find a much sightlier place anywhere; though, accordin’ to Jeff’s say, here, they’ve got bigger mountains on the other side.  Ever been in Europe?”

“Why, yes,” said Mrs. Vostrand, with a little mouth of deprecation.  “In fact, we’ve just come home.  We’ve been living there.”

“That so?” returned Whitwell, in humorous toleration.  “Glad to get back, I presume?”

“Oh yes—­yes,” said Mrs. Vostrand, in a sort of willowy concession, as if the character before her were not to be crossed or gainsaid.

“Well, it ’ll do you good here,” said Whitwell. “‘N’ the young lady, too.  A few tramps over these hills ’ll make you look like another woman.”  He added, as if he had perhaps made his remarks too personal to the girl, “Both of you.”

“Oh yes,” the mother assented, fervently.  “We shall count upon your showing us all their-mysteries.”

Whitwell looked pleased.  “I’ll do my best-whenever you’re ready.”  He went on:  “Why, Jeff, here, has just got back, too.  Jeff, what was the name of that French boat you said you crossed on?  I want to see if I can’t make out what plantchette meant by that broken shaft.  She must have meant something, and if I could find out the name of the ship—­Tell the ladies about it?” Jeff laughed, with a shake of the head, and Whitwell continued, “Why, it was like this,” and he possessed the ladies of a fact which they professed to find extremely interesting.  At the end of their polite expressions he asked Jeff again:  “What did you say the name was?”

“Aquitaine,” said Jeff, briefly.

“Why, we came on the Aquitaine!” said Mrs. Vostrand, with a smile for Jeff.  “But how did we happen not to see one another?”

“Oh, I came second-cabin,” said Jeff.  “I worked my way over on a cattle-ship to London, and, when I decided not to work my way back, I found I hadn’t enough money for a first-cabin passage.  I was in a hurry to get back in time to get settled at Harvard, and so I came second-cabin.  It wasn’t bad.  I used to see you across the rail.”

“Well!” said Whitwell.

“How very—­amusing!” said Mrs. Vostrand.  “What a small world it is!” With these words she fell into a vagary; her daughter recalled her from it with a slight movement.  “Breakfast?  How impatient you are, Genevieve!  Well!” She smiled the sweetest parting to Whitwell, and suffered herself to be led away by Jeff.