This morning I turned my glass, as usual, on his pet haunt. I nearly
fell over in my astonishment, for he was also looking through a
spyglass straight at me, too, it seemed. How foolish I felt! And yet
my curiosity was so strong that a few minutes afterward I peeped back
again, just to see what he was doing. Then he coolly laid down his
glass, rose, lifted his cap and bowed politely to me--or, at least, in
my direction. I dropped my glass and smiled in a mixture of dismay and
amusement. Then I remembered that he was probably watching me again,
and might imagine my smile was meant for him. I banished it
immediately, shut my glass up and did not touch it again. Soon after
we came home.
July Twelfth.
Something has happened at last. Today I went to the shore as usual,
fully resolved not even to glance in the forbidden direction. But in
the end I had to take a peep, and saw him on the rocks with his glass
levelled at me. When he saw that I was looking he laid down the glass,
held up his hands, and began to spell out something in the deaf-mute
alphabet. Now, I know that same alphabet. Connie taught it to me last
year, so that we might hold communication across the schoolroom. I
gave one frantic glance at Aunt Martha's rigid back, and then watched
him while he deftly spelled: "I am Francis Shelmardine. Are you not
Miss Forrester, my sister's friend?"
Francis Shelmardine! Now I knew whom he resembled. And have I not
heard endless dissertations from Connie on this wonderful brother of
hers, Francis the clever, the handsome, the charming, until he has
become the only hero of dreams I have ever had? It was too wonderful.
I could only stare dazedly back through my glass.
"May we know each other?" he went on. "May I come over and introduce
myself? Right hand, yes; left, no."
I gasped! Suppose he were to come? _What_ would happen? I waved my
left hand sorrowfully. He looked quite crestfallen and disappointed as
he spelled out: "Why not? Would your friends disapprove?"