Harkness had set up his consulting room in the hotel, but, for economy’s sake, he lodged himself in the old Harmon house that was just beyond Captain Rexford’s, on the same road.  By this arrangement he passed the latter house twice a day, but he never took any notice of Blue and Red.  They did not wish that he should—­oh no, they were above that—­but they felt sure that Eliza was very silly to dislike him as she did, and—­well, between themselves, they found an infinite variety of things to say concerning him, sayings emphasised by sweet little chuckles of laughter, and not unfrequently wandering sighs.  Sophia, at their age, had had many suitors, this was the family tradition, and lo, upon their own barren horizon there was only one pretty young man, and he only to be looked at, as it were, through the bars of a fence.

One day, when the blue merino frock was flitting about near the red one, the wearers of both being engaged in shaking up a feather bed, Red suddenly stopped her occupation in some excitement.

“Oh, Blue!” She paused a moment as if she were experiencing some interesting sensation; “oh, Blue, I think I’ve got toothache.”

“No!” cried Blue, incredulously, but with hope.

Again over Red’s face came the absorbed expression of introspection, and she carefully indented the outside of her pretty cheek several times with her forefinger.

“Yes, I’m sure I feel it.  But no; there, it’s gone again!”

“It’s just the very way things have,” said Blue, lamenting.  “For two months we’ve quite wished we had toothache, and there was Tommy the other night just roaring with it.”

“I shouldn’t like a roaring toothache,” said Red, reflectively.

“Oh, but the worse it was,” cried Blue, encouragingly, “the more necessary it would be—­” She stopped and shook her head with a very roguish and significant glance at her sister.

“Mamma only put a bag of hot salt to Tommy’s,” said Red, prognosticating evil.

“But if it were me,” cried Blue, with assurance, “I’d not be cured by bags of hot salt.  I would insist upon consulting a dentist.”

They both laughed a laugh of joyful plotting.

“It was only the other day,” said Red, twisting her little English voice into the American accent, “that he told Harold he was right down clever at tinkering a tooth in the most pain_less_ manner.”

“Oh, Red, dear Red,” begged Blue, “do feel it again, for my sake; it would be so joyfully funny if mamma would take us to him.”

“I’d a little bit rather you, had the ache, Blue.”

“I’d have it this instant if I could, but”—­reproachfully—­“it was you that felt the twinge.”.

“Well, I don’t mind,” said Red, heroically, “as long as my cheek doesn’t swell; I won’t go with a swelled face.”

“What would it matter?  He knows that your face is alike on both sides usually.”