me that I don't quite like."
Henrietta frowned thoughtfully into her coffee cup while she
hesitated, as if choosing words for further speech. In shirtwaist,
linen collar and cloth skirt she looked trim, well groomed, alert.
Fair-haired and fresh-colored, her expression capable, composed and
sweet-natured, she was what a Scotchman would call "a bonny lass."
Her sister, also fair, was smaller of mold and daintier of look and
manner. She appeared a little older, but her features were finer and
more regular and a twinkle of humor barely hid itself in the corner of
her blue eye, as if ready to spring forth at the first encouragement.

"This begins to sound romantic!" chaffed Isabella. "Let's hope he's at
least a pirate in disguise."

"No, let's not. Because then he'd sail away and I'd have to hunt a new
job. And it is such a nice place, Bella! I don't believe another girl
in my whole class just fell into such good luck as I did. He seems
pleased with my work, too."

"I know he is, Harry, because Mrs. Annister told me last week that Mr.
Brand thinks he has found a jewel of a secretary--the best he's ever
had. I was waiting"--and a gleam of mirth sparkled in her eyes as she
smiled fondly upon her sister--"to tell you until some day when you'd
be feeling blue. But I just couldn't wait any longer."

Henrietta flushed with pleasure. "I'm so glad to know that! If he'll
just keep on being satisfied a few months longer, we'll have this
place paid for!"

"Oh, we're going to pull through all right!" Isabella exclaimed,
hopeful conviction in her tones and smile. Then she puckered her brows
and did her best to look doubtful and alarmed as she went on in a
tragic half whisper, her blue eyes dancing: "If he doesn't turn pirate
and sail away in the meantime, or, maybe, make a villain out of you,
with this wicked influence you're getting alarmed about, so that
you'll maybe steal your own salary and run away with it and leave
mother and me to star-r-ve! To think that a famous architect should
be just oozing badness all around him like that--as Mark Twain said,
'like ottar of roses out of an otter'--at the same time that he's
evolving such beautiful things out of his brain! Ugh! It's awful!"

Henrietta laughed, a short, chuckling laugh that suggested deeper
amusement than it expressed. "Is there anything you wouldn't make fun
of, Bella? Very likely it isn't he, after all, but just my own innate
wickedness coming to the surface. It's on