The Lawton Girl. Frederic Harold

indeed, brought up later on, when the two girls were alone together in the little boudoir connecting their apartments. Pale-faced Ethel sat before the fire, dreamily looking into the coals, while her sister stood behind her, brushing out and braiding for the night the younger maiden’s long blonde hair.

      “Do you know, Kate,” said Ethel, after a long pause, “it hurt me almost as if that Mr. Tracy had been a friend of ours, when Tabitha told about him and—and that woman. It is so hard to have to believe evil of everybody. You would like to think well of some particular person whom you have seen—just as a pleasant fancy of the mind—and straightway they come and tell odious things about him. Didn’t it annoy you? And did you believe it?” Kate drew the ivory brush slowly over the flowing, soft-brown ringlets lying across her hand, again and again, but kept silence until Ethel repeated her latter question. Then she said, evasively:

      “When we get to be old maids, we sha’n’t spend our time in collecting people’s shortcomings, as boys collect postage-stamps, shall we, dear?”