“I don’t think you ought to speak in such a way, Charlotte.  You can’t help seeing how much he admires you.”

There was a tone in Sophia’s carefully modulated voice which made Charlotte turn, and look at her sister.  She was sitting at her embroidery-frame, and apparently counting the stitches in the rose-leaf she was copying; but Charlotte noticed that her hand trembled, and that she was counting at random.  In a moment the veil fell from her eyes:  she understood that Sophia was in love with Julius, and fearful of her own influence over him.  She had been about to leave the room:  she returned to the window, and stood at it a few moments, as if considering the assertion.

“I should be very sorry if that were the case, Sophia.”

“Why?”

“Because I do not admire Julius in any way.  I never could admire him.  I don’t want to be in debt to him for even one-half hour of sentimental affection.”

“You should let him understand that, Charlotte, if it be so.”

“He must be very dull if he does not understand.”

“When father and you went fishing yesterday, he went with you.”

“Why did you not come also?  We begged you to do so.”

“Because I hate to be hot and untidy, and to get my hands soiled, and my face flushed.  That was your condition when you returned home; but all the same, he said you looked like a water-nymph or a wood-nymph.”

“I think very little of him for such talk.  There is nothing ‘nymphy’ about me.  I should hate myself if there were.  I am going to write, and ask Harry to get a furlough for a few weeks.  I want to talk sensibly to some one.  I am tired of being on the heights or in the depths all the time; and as for poetry, I wish I might never hear words that rhyme again.  I’ve got to feel that way about it, that if I open a book, and see the lines begin with capitals, my first impulse is to tear it to pieces.  There, now, you have my opinions, Sophia!”

Sophia laughed softly.  “Where are you going?  I see you have your bonnet on.”

“I am going to Up-Hill.  Grandfather Latrigg had a fall yesterday, and that’s a bad thing at his age.  Father is quite put out about it.”

“Is he going with you?”

“He was, but two of the shepherds from Holler Scree have just come for him.  There is something wrong with the flocks.”

“Julius?”

“He does not know I am going; and if he did, I should tell him plainly he was not wanted either at Up-Hill, or on the way to it.  Ducie thinks little of him, and grandfather Latrigg makes his face like a stone wall when Julius talks his finest.”

“They don’t understand Julius.  How can they?  Steve is their model, and Steve is not the least like Julius.”

“I should think not.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.  Good-by.”

She shut the door with more emphasis than she was aware of, and went to her mother for some cordials and dainties to take with her.  As she passed through the hall the squire called her, and she followed his voice into the small parlor which was emphatically “master’s room.”