Page:Hendryx--Connie Morgan with the Mounted.djvu/155

Rh Morgan's lot had been cast among men. He knew men—women he did not know. And now, as he looked over the heads of the children into the face of the woman with the blue eyes, he felt, somehow, uncomfortably prominent; his hands and his feet seemed suddenly to have become ungainly things, whose appearance and movements were clumsy and ridiculous. He turned red.

"He—hello! I mean—How are you?" he stammered. And, again remembering his long-forgotten manners, he reached for his Stetson, and was surprised to find that he still held it in his hand. So, in lieu of raising it from his head, he waggled it uncertainly, and tried again:

"Good evening!"

The woman was still smiling. "Good evening," she answered, in a low voice. "Won't you come in?"

"Yes—yes'm—if you don't mind," answered the boy in confusion. "I'm Connie Morgan—Special Constable Morgan, of the Mounted," he confided. The woman nodded and drew back from the door as the boy entered, closely followed by the two children who continued to stare mutely at the visitor.