"Now tell me." And she told him how upset her mother had been when he went away so suddenly ("She never meant you to, Vance—but she got frightened… ."), and how surprised they were when the basket of flowers with the dove was brought the next day, and how Mrs. Tracy had first been angry, and said: "Is he crazy?" and then cried, and said: "But he must have spent all the money I gave him back," and then been angry again because she was so sure he'd be the cause of their losing their job at the Willows—and they did lose it, and only got it back after Miss Halo had intervened, and the books were returned, and old Mr. Lorburn had been quieted down again. ("But the dove was lovely, Vance. I've got it over my looking glass… .") And at the thought of this miraculous reward he had to clench her hand hard to keep himself from warmer endearments. How little he had dreamed, when he bought it, that the dove would be Venus's messenger!

She went on to say that things had been very hard for a time, because they had been out of their job for six months. It wasn't so much the money, though they needed that too; he gathered that Mrs. Tracy's pride had been wounded, and that she had declared, when Miss Halo tried to fix it up, that it was no use, as she would never let her children go back to the Willows if they had forfeited their cousin's confidence. But Miss Halo always somehow managed to put things right, and had finally persuaded Mrs. Tracy to relent; and she had continued to help them after that, and had found a fine situation for Upton as undergardener with some friends of hers who had a big place at Tarrytown. So everything was going better now; and she, Laura Lou, was at Saint Elfrida's School, at Peapack, for a six months' course, to learn French and literature and a little music—because her mother wanted her to be educated, like her father's folks were… .

Laura Lou was not endowed with the narrative gift; only bit by bit, in answer to Vance's questions (when he was not too absorbed in her to put any) did she manage, in fragmentary communications, to bridge over the interval which had turned the gawky girl into the miracle of young womanhood before him.