e
_too_ trying sometimes!"

Sophy tried earnestly to speak, but laughter kept stopping her.

Charlotte shook her again.

"How selfish of you, Sophy! I can't see where the fun comes in. I tell
you I don't _want_ to lay out one of poor, dear Joe's night-shirts for
that young man to snigger over."

"I ... I don't believe he's the ... the 'sniggering' sort...." murmured
Sophy, wiping her eyes.

"Well, to sneer at, then. You've _got_ to help me. Can't you think of
anything?"

Sophy considered. Suddenly her face became convulsed again.

"I ... I might lend him ... a pair of B-Bobby's pyjamas...." she
faltered.

Charlotte turned on her heel.

"Very well," she said haughtily. But Sophy ran after her, repentant. She
hooked a cajoling arm in Charlotte's stiffened elbow.

"Don't get huffy, dear," she coaxed. "I'm sure one of Joe's night-shirts
will do _perfectly_ ... really I do...."

They finally went to the Blue-room together--Charlotte with a white
object folded very small over one arm. She laid it on the foot of the
bed, outside the old brocade quilt. Then she stood looking
discontentedly down on it.

"I'm sure it looks _very_ nice," said Sophy.

But Charlotte stood absorbed. Presently she said:

"I really think I'd better unfold it. He might think it was an extra
pillow-case."

And she displayed the quaint garment at greater length.

"Thank heaven I marked these myself with white embroidery cotton," she
then murmured. "Joe _will_ mark them with that horrid, indelible ink if
I don't watch him like a hawk. Do you think it looks better so?"

"I think it looks perfectly charming," said Sophy gravely. Then she went
off again into uncontrollable fits of laughter. "I ... I even think...."
she stammered, "that it will be becoming...."

Charlotte turned her back and left the room, perfectly outdone with her.
But all during supper Sophy kept smiling now and then, as she pictured
Morris Loring's classic head emerging from the Judge's ample night-robe.

IV

October had come. Sophy and Morris Loring were walking together towards
the woods that lay along the hills behind Sweet-Waters. He had ridden
over from the Macfarlanes' and was to stay to dinner. Bobby trotted
soberly by his mother, his mittened hand in hers. He was a reticent
child about his deepest feelings. One of these feelings was that he did
not like Loring. As he had said of the Deity in His form of _Jupiter
tonans_ so he said in his heart of