If you succeed the friends who are now helping you will be more than rewarded." "Ah, I will do anything to please you, sir." She caught his hand and impulsively raised it to her lips.
Gay was a little embarrassed at this outburst.

Did it mean that the girl had fallen in love with him?
He checked the rising thought.

Yet there was nothing outrageous in such a possibility.

Lavinia was only sixteen, it is true, and romantic sixteen might see nothing incongruous in thirty-seven, which was Gay's age.
"What pleases me, child, doesn't matter," he returned hastily.

"I want to see you please others--in the play house I mean." She looked at him wistfully.
"But," he continued, "it will be time enough to talk of that when I see how you get on.