Think of her as if she were your own sister, and don't--don't----"

"Be 'as funny as I can'? No, I won't."

Evelyn observed Lucy all that day with understanding, and found herself
longing to warn the girl that her foolishness was about to meet with its
punishment. She noted with sorrow the strangely excited look in the
young eyes, the light, half-hysterical laugh, the changing colour in the
pretty face. Lucy's promise of beauty had never seemed to her so
characterless, or her words so empty of sense.

She found her in a corner of their room, reading a worn novel by a
certain author whose very name she had been taught to regard as a
synonym for vapidity and sentimentalism of the most highly flavoured
sort, and she could not keep back a quick exclamation at sight of it.
Lucy looked up with a frown and a flush.

"I suppose you think it's terrible to read novels," she said, pettishly
flirting the leaves. "Well, I don't."

"Dear, it's not 'novels' that I've been taught to despise, but the sort
of novel that writer writes. I don't know anything about them myself,
but I saw my brother Thorne once put that one you're reading in the
stove and jam on the cover, as if he were afraid it would get out. Do
you wonder I don't like to see Lucy Peyton reading it?" asked Evelyn
gently, with her cheek against the other girl's.

"He must be a terrible Miss Nancy, then," said Lucy, defiantly. "There's
not a thing in it that couldn't be in a Sunday-school book. The heroine
is the sweetest thing."

"If she is she won't mind your putting her down and coming out for a
walk with me," answered Evelyn, with a smile which might have captivated
Lucy if she had seen it. But the younger girl got up and flung away out
of the room, murmuring that she did not feel like walking, and would
take herself and her book where they would not bother people.

Evelyn looked after her with a little sigh, and owned that Jeff might be
right in thinking that mere gentle argument with Lucy would have scant
effect on a head full of nonsense or a heart whose love for the sweet
and true had had far too little development.

Half an hour before the time set for the rendezvous at the summer-house
that night Jeff and Just walked down the path, shoulder to shoulder,
talking under their breath. Just, being younger, was even more deeply
interested than his brother in the prospective encounter, and received
his final instructions with ill-concealed glee.

"All right!" h