The Blythes Are Quoted by L. M. Montgomery

boys ... though it was not a ‘resort’ then and a good many people called it the pond. Did you want to go there?”
    “Yes. Aunt Edith was going to take me. Then she couldn’t. She had to go to town on important business. Dr. Blythe took them.”
    “Dr. Blythe! Is he still in Glen St. Mary?”
    “Yes, but they live at Ingleside now.”
    “Oh! And is your Aunt Kathleen at home?”
    Timothy thawed. This man knew Aunt Kathleen, therefore it was allowable to talk to him.
    “No, she went, too.”
    “When will they be back?”
    “Not till the evening. They went to town to see a lawyer. I heard Linda say so.”
    “Oh!” The man reflected a moment and then gave a queer inward chuckle. Timothy didn’t like the sound of it particularly.
    “Are you a friend of Aunt Kathleen?” he inquired politely.
    The man laughed again.
    “A friend. Oh, yes, a very near and dear friend. I’m sure she’d have been delighted to see me.”
    “You must call again,” said Timothy persuasively.
    “It’s quite likely I shall,” said the man.
    He sat down on the big red boulder by the gate, lighted a cigarette with fingers that were strangely rough and callous, and looked Timothy over in a cool, appraising manner.
    A trim little lad ... well set up ... curly brown hair ... dreamy eyes and a good chin.
    “Whom do you look like, boy?” he said abruptly. “Your dad?”
    Timothy shook his head.
    “No. I wish I did. But I don’t know what he looked like. He’s dead ... and there isn’t any picture.”
    “There wouldn’t be,” said the man. Again Timothy didn’t like it.
    “My dad was a very brave man,” he said quickly. “He was a soldier in the Boer War and he won the Distinguished Service Medal.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “Aunt Edith. Aunt Kathleen won’t talk of him ever. Aunt Edith won’t either ... much ... but she told me that.”
    “Edith was always a bit of a good scout,” muttered the man. “You don’t look like your ... your ... mother either.”
    “No, I can see that. I have a picture of mother. She died when I was born. Aunt Edith says I look like Grandfather Norris ... her father. I’m called after him.”
    “Are your aunts good to you?” asked the man.
    “They are,” said Timothy emphatically. He would have said the same thing if they had not been. Timothy had a fine sense of loyalty. “Of course ... you know ... they’re bringing me up. I have to be scolded sometimes ... and I have to take music lessons ...”
    “You don’t like that,” said the man, amused.
    “No. But I guess maybe it’s good dis ... cipline.”
    “You have a dog, I see,” said the man, indicating Merrylegs. “Good breed, too. I thought Kathleen and Edith never liked dogs.”
    “They don’t. But they let me have one because Dr. Blythe said every boy ought to have a dog. So my aunts gave in. They don’t even say anything when he sleeps on my bed at nights. They don’t approve of it, you know, but they let him stay. I’m glad because I don’t like going to sleep in the dark.”
    “Do they make you do that?”
    “Oh, it’s all right,” said Timothy quickly. He wasn’t going to have anyone imagine that he was finding fault with his aunts. “I’m quite old enough to go to sleep in the dark. Only ... only ...”
    “Yes?”
    “It’s only that when the light goes out I can’t help imagining faces looking in at the window ... awful faces ... hateful faces. I heard Aunt Kathleen say once that she was always expecting to look at the window and ‘see his face.’ I don’t know who she meant ... but after that I began to see faces in the dark.”
    “Your mother was like that,” said the man absently. “She hated the dark. They shouldn’t make you sleep in it.”
    “They should,” cried Timothy. “My aunts are bricks. I love them. And I wish they weren’t so worried.”
    “Oh, so they’re worried?”
    “Terribly. I don’t know what it is about. I can’t think it’s me ... though they look at me