“I think it’s dreadful!” cried Josephine.  She had never thought of it before, or considered Max’s pale skin as the direct result of spending his days under such conditions.  “If you could see the difference between your face and Mr. Ferry’s—­”

Max stared at her.  “That red-headed, freckle-faced chap seems to have made a great impression on you,” he complained.  “He probably has an out-door job of some sort—­his clothes showed it.  Engineering, more than likely.  That was undoubtedly a book on dynamics or hydraulics, or something of that sort.  You can’t expect a bank clerk to have a skin like an Indian’s—­under electric light.  Come on, shall we walk back to the timber tract?  That’s what I want to look at.  I suppose you won’t object to my cutting there?  There must be a lot of stuff fit to sell, and, as I told you, I need the money.  When Sally gets out of the hospital, it will be a long time before she’s fit to work.  Uncle Tim says typhoid convalescents are pretty slow at getting back to the working stage.  We’ll have to keep on hiring that Mary Ann Flinders.  She polishes the stove with the napkins, I think—­they look it.”

“Goodness!  How poor Sally would feel if she knew!”

“She does know.  I told her the last time I saw her—­before she got these funny notions in her head.  To-day she thought I was an Episcopal bishop come to marry her to the doctor—­they got me out right away.”

“Max!  You must not tell Sally disturbing things about home.  She will be anxious enough when she’s herself, without hearing about napkins and things from you.”

“I suppose so.  But I’ve been so blue ever since she went I couldn’t keep in.”

“Then keep out.”

Max looked at her.  Josephine’s dark cheeks were pink, partly with indignation, partly with the brisk progress over the slightly rising grade of the cartpath through the fields toward the timber tract.

“Well, you are sort of down on your friends to-day, aren’t you?  I’m an idiot to think of cutting down the pine grove.  I’m a milksop compared with a red-headed Indian you never saw before.  Now I’m a blunderbuss for answering a simple question asked me by my sister.  What do you think I am, anyhow?  Fit to cumber the earth?”

Josephine returned his gaze.  She seemed not in the least awed by this burst of wrath.  She replied with spirit, not unmixed with good humour: 

“I think you’re peppery—­as usual.  Hasn’t an old friend like me a right to try to keep things straight?  You ought to know better than to say one word to Sally that will give her a minute’s anxiety.  Goodness knows she’s had enough of it, keeping house for you four people for three whole years.”

“Haven’t we been taking care of her all that time?” demanded Max, with rising colour of his own.  “Haven’t we all been working our heads off to pay expenses, and giving her every cent we could get to run things with?”