But, when dinner was over
(Brian had taken his lunch with him to the clearing), Homer T. Ward
wanted to know things.
"Was Brian Kent still working in the neighborhood?"
Auntie Sue informed him that Brian was still working in the
neighborhood.
"Betty Jo had seen the bank clerk?" Betty Jo's uncle supposed. "What did
she think of the fellow?"
Betty Jo thought Brian Kent was a rather nice fellow.
"And how had Betty Jo been amusing herself while her old uncle was
slaving in the city?"
Betty Jo had been doing a number of things: Helping Auntie Sue with her
housework; learning to cook; keeping up her stenographic work; reading.
"Reading?" That reminded him, and forthwith Mr. Ward went to his room,
and returned with the book.
And then those two blessed women listened and admired while he
introduced them to the new genius, and read certain favorite passages
from the great book, and grew enthusiastic on the new author, saying all
that he had written in his letter and many things more, until Betty Jo
could restrain herself no longer, but ran to him, and took the book from
his hands, and, with her arms around his neck, told him that he was the
dearest uncle in the world, because she was going to marry the man who
wrote the book he so admired.
There were long explanations after that: How the book so highly valued
by Banker Ward had actually been written in that very log house by the
river; how Auntie Sue had sent for Betty Jo to assist the author with
her typewriting; how the author, not knowing who Betty Jo was, had
fallen in love with his stenographer, and, finally, how Betty Jo's
author-lover was even then waiting to meet her guardian, still not
knowing that her guardian was the banker Homer T.
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