on or other I did not
feel like beginning, and this disinclination did not come from
chivalry, but I must confess from fear, Nina being armed with all sorts
of weapons which if I had possessed I should not have known how to use.

"You seem to be very busy," she said after I had bounced my ball up and
down two hundred and eleven times without missing it. I took no notice
of that remark except to count out loud. "Twelve, thirteen, fourteen"
I went on carefully, and when I was half-way through fifteen she threw
her hat at the ball and, by a miracle, hit it.

"You are as big a baby now as you were ten years ago," she said.

"I only wish you were," I answered, and threw the ball away from me.

"So that I might everlastingly fetch and carry for you and Fred," she
replied quickly.

"That isn't true," I retorted; "at least if it is true of me it isn't
of Fred. He always treats you well."

"You will talk to me about Fred until I shall positively hate him."

"I want to talk about him now," I said.

"Of course you do, he is your favourite topic of conversation," and
really I believe she knew that if she attacked me I should forget to
talk about Fred.

"You don't seem to see what a friend he is of mine," I answered.

"If I liked all the friends of every one I know, I should never have
any time to do anything else."

"You forget that I happen to be your brother," I said, but I might have
known better than to make such a remark, for she seemed to think it was
amusing.

"Sometimes you are quite delicious," she returned, and I began to feel
that we were as far off a plain understanding as we had ever been.

"Look here, Nina, you are beginning to give yourself airs, and it is
time some one told you," I began desperately. "You will be known as a
nice girl gone wrong; you were nice once, and now you talk as if you
know a lot of people and try to make out you are about twice as old as
you really are. It won't do, it really won't; what's the good of
pretending things, it's such a waste of time?"

She looked away from me when I had finished, and I had not the vaguest
idea how she would reply, but at any rate she did not laugh.

"You are really serious for once," she said half questioningly.

"I often try to be serious, only no one ever suspects it," I answered,
unable to keep myself out of it.

"But you are always one-sided."

I very nearly said that I had only spoken for her good, but managed to
stop myself, becau