"Just three years and three months from now, right after school closes."
"Well," laughed Allen, "you certainly don't intend to miss that train. But I'll meet you. I'm the family 'meeter.' I meet my grandmother, I meet my aunts, and all my mother's friends. I'm _always_ meeting somebody with a suitcase full of _bricks_. Anyway, nobody ever brings a light one. But your shoes, I'm sure, wouldn't weigh as much as my grandmother's---she's a _big_ grandmother."
"May I keep this time-card?" asked Jeanne, earnestly.
"You may," returned the smiling lad, "but it'll be pretty stale three years from now."
"_And_ three months," sighed Jeanne. "But having this to look at will make Bancroft seem _nearer_."
"So," said Mr. Huntington, "you're going to be a railroad man?"
"Yes," replied Allen. "If they have railroad ladies, by that time, Jeannette, I'll give you a job."
"I shan't need it," said Jeanne. "I'm going to be married."
"To whom?" asked Allen. "Got him picked out?"
"The iceman, I think. Oh, does a railroad man stay away from home a great deal?"
"Goody! That's what I'll have--a railroad man."
"I'll wait for you," laughed Allen. "You're the funniest little kid I've met in a long time."
"I don't have to decide until I'm twenty," said Jeanne, cautiously. "I _might_ find a more stay-away husband than that."
The next morning the postman brought a letter from Jeanne's father. As usual, Harold, who had rudely snatched the mail from James, held Jeanne's letter behind him with one hand and held his nose with the other.
"Fish," returned Harold, pretending to be very ill. "Her father's a fishman, you know. You can smell his letters coming while they're still on the train."
Allen glanced at Jeannette. She was red with embarrassment and very close to tears.
"You young cub," said he, "I've heard all about Jeanne's father from my grandmother. I don't know what he's doing now, but the Duvals were a splendid old French family even if they _were_ poor. 'Way back, they were Huguenots--perhaps you've had those in school. Anyway, they were fine people. And Jeannette's father was well educated and a gentleman. It isn't a bit worse to sell fish than it is to sit all day in a bank. I'd _rather_ sell fish, myself.... Particularly, if I could do the catching."