"It's a strong hand," she replied soberly, "it's a dear hand."
Suddenly she snatched it up and pressed it for a fleeting instant
against her cheek, looking at him half ashamed.
XXI
The winter months were spent at Monrovia, where Orde and his wife
lived for a time at the hotel. This was somewhat expensive, but
Orde was not quite ready to decide on a home, and he developed
unexpected opposition to living at Redding in the Orde homestead.
"No, I've been thinking about it," he told Grandma Orde. "A young
couple should start out on their own responsibility. I know you'd
be glad to have us, but I think it's better the other way. Besides,
I must be at Monrovia a good deal of the time, and I want Carroll
with me. She can make you a good long visit in the spring, when I
have to go up river."
To this Grandma Orde, being a wise old lady, had to nod her assent,
although she would much have liked her son near her.
At Monrovia, then, they took up their quarters. Carroll soon became
acquainted with the life of the place. Monrovia, like most towns of
its sort and size, consisted of an upper stratum of mill owners and
lumber operators, possessed of considerable wealth, some
cultivation, and definite social ideas; a gawky, countrified, middle
estate of storekeepers, catering both to the farm and local trade
and the lumber mill operatives, generally of Holland extraction, who
dwelt in simple unpainted board shanties.
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