Poor Octavia could tell you I was as cross as X . How did you come to think of it , Jerome ? '' `` A fellow had to do something , '' said Jerome oracularly , `` and I 'd have done most anything to get you , Anne , that 's a fact . And there it was -- courting fifteen years and nothing to show for it . I dunno , though , how I did come to think of it . Guess it was a sort of inspiration . Anyhow , I 've got you and that 's what I set out to do in the beginning . '' Young Si Mr. Bentley had just driven into the yard with the new summer boarder . Mrs. Bentley and Agnes were peeping at her from behind the parlour curtains with the keen interest that they -- shut in by their restricted farm life -- always felt in any visitor from the outside world lying beyond their boundary of purple misted hills . Mrs. Bentley was a plump , rosy-cheeked woman with a motherly smile . Agnes was a fair , slim schoolgirl , as tall as her mother , with a sweet face and a promise of peach blossom prettiness in the years to come . The arrival of a summer boarder was a great event in her quiet life . `` Ai n't she pretty ? '' whispered Mrs. Bentley admiringly , as the girl came slowly up the green slope before the house . `` I do hope she 's nice . You can generally calculate on men boarders , but girls are doubtful . Preserve me from a cranky boarder ! I 've had enough of them . I kinder like her looks , though . '' Ethel Lennox had paused at the front door as Mrs. Bentley and Agnes came into the hall .
Agnes gazed XXXXX the stranger with shy , unenvious admiration ; the latter stood on the stone step just where the big chestnut by the door cast flickering gleams and shadows over her dress and shining hair .
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