As often happens, he had come back to Dunport almost a
stranger after his years of college life were over, and he had a
mingled love and impatience for the old place. The last year had been
very pleasant, however: there were a few young men whose good comrade
and leader he was; his relations with his fellow-citizens were most
harmonious; and as for the girls of his own age and their younger
sisters, who were just growing up, he was immensely popular and
admired by them. It had become a subject of much discussion whether he
and Mary Parish would not presently decide upon becoming engaged to
each other, until Miss Prince's long-banished niece came to put a new
suspicion into everybody's mind.
Many times when George Gerry had a new proof that he had somehow
fallen into the habit of walking home with the pleasant girl who was
his friend and neighbor, he had told himself abruptly that there was
no danger in it, and that they never could have any other feeling for
each other. But he had begun to think also that she belonged to him in
some vague way, and sometimes acknowledged that it might be a thing to
consider more deeply by and by. He was only twenty-six, and the world
was still before him, but he was not very sympathetic with other
people's enthusiasm over their love affairs, and wondered if it were
not largely a matter of temperament, though by and by he should like
to have a home of his own.
He was somewhat attracted toward Miss Prince, the younger, for her
aunt's sake, and had made up his mind that he would be very attentive
to her, no matter how displeasing and uninteresting she might be: it
was sure to be a time of trial to his old friend, and he would help
all he could to make the visit as bearable as possible.
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