Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/284

 You will think more kindly of me some day, I hope, when time has freed your mind of its prejudice."

"When will that be?" she asked, meeting his eyes full for a moment.

"I wrote only this morning to your uncle, stating your gradual but steady improvement, and assuring him that in my opinion—subject, of course, to circumstances—it would be a matter of a few months more only," he said. "Does not that make your feelings a little—only a little more tender—"

"What did you say?" a shrill voice interrupted, "say that again, please."

Caroline had beguiled the woman next her, a frail, anemic little creature with pathetic eyes, into a halting conversation.

"I said," she repeated, buttering her roll thickly and appreciatively with fresh, clover-scented butter, "I said that no weather was too hot for me. I love it."

("Now, really, I am pleased," the big doctor murmured to the girl beside him. "Mrs. Du Long hasn't seemed so interested for days. In