Ralph Henry Barbour

“ The only thing that bothered me was Ned Merrill, and I didn't really mean to call him a “thing,” because he is really a perfectly dear boy. But he would insist on imagining himself in love with me, which, considering that he is only twenty years old, is rather ridiculous. I was a bit huffy with Larry when he told me that he had asked Ned down to Eastmeadows, but Larry is very fond of him, and, besides, when he explained that I was to invite Jocelyn down for two weeks, I understood perfectly. Ned was to amuse me so that he and Jocelyn could spoon. ”

“ We shook hands and Frank started up, and the last I saw of Mr. Tully he was standing bare-headed under the elm, looking—bless him!—quite woebegone.
Traveling alone is awfully stupid and even “The Distribution of Wealth” failed to cheer me up. I managed a whole chapter between Providence and New London, but it was quite beyond my poor wits. Jocelyn and Ned were waiting for me at the station, and in ten minutes I was aboard the Onyx and we were sitting down to luncheon. ”

“ Tully came hurrying over with a book in his hand.
“I sent for this some time ago,” he said, “but it came only last night. It's my 'Distribution of Wealth,' you know, Miss Pryde. I thought perhaps you'd like to look it over on the train.”
Fancy my reading political economy on the way to a Harvard-Yale boat race! But I thanked him as nicely as I knew how, for it was perfectly dear of him to remember, wasn't it? And I turned to the front of the book and found he had written on a fly-leaf: “To Miss Pryde, with the author's thanks and esteem. W. J. J. Tully.” ”