“I wish I were dead.”

“So do I,” I retorted, jerking the thread.

“Where is she now?”

“Looking for more of these.”  I indicated the garment over the pillow, and he wiggled.  “Please don’t squirm,” I said coldly.  “You will wear out your—­lingerie, and I will have to mend them.”

He sat very still for five minutes, when I discovered that I had put the patch in crosswise instead of lengthwise and that it would not fit.  As I jerked it out he sneezed.

“Or sneeze,” I added venomously.  “You will tear your buttons off, and I will have to sew them on.”

Jim rose wrathfully.  “Don’t sit, don’t sneeze,” he repeated.  “Don’t stand, I suppose, for fear I will wear out my socks.  Here, give me that.  If the fool thing has to be mended, I’ll do it myself.”

He went over to a corner of the parapet and turned his back to me.  He was very much offended.  In about a minute he came back, triumphant, and held out the result of his labor.  I could only gasp.  He had puckered up the edges of the hole like the neck of a bag, and had tied the thread around it.  “You—­you won’t be able to sit down,” I ventured.

“Don’t have any time to sit,” he retorted promptly.  “Anyhow, it will give some, won’t it?  It would if it was tied with elastic instead of thread.  Have you any elastic?”

Lollie came up just then, and Jim took himself and his mending downstairs.  Luckily, Aunt Selina found several letters in his room that afternoon while she was going over his clothes, and as it took Jim some time to explain them, she forgot the task she had given me altogether.

When Lollie came up to the roof, she closed the door to the stairs, and coming over, drew a chair close to mine.

“Have you seen much of Tom today?” she asked, as an introduction.

“I suppose you mean Mr. Harbison, Lollie,” I said.  “No—­not any more than I could help.  Don’t whisper, he couldn’t possibly hear you.  And if it’s scandal I don’t want to know it.”

“Look here, Kit,” she retorted, “you needn’t be so superior.  If I like to talk scandal, I’m not so sure you aren’t making it.”

That was the way right along:  I was making scandal; I brought them there to dinner; I let Bella in!

And, of course, Anne came up then, and began on me at once.

“You are a very bad girl,” she began.  “What do you mean by treating Tom Harbison the way you do?  He is heart-broken.”

“I think you exaggerate my influence over him,” I retorted.  “I haven’t treated him badly, because I haven’t paid any attention to him.”

Anne threw up her hands.

“There you are!” she said.  “He worked all day yesterday fixing this place for you—­yes, for you, my dear.  I am not blind—­and last night you refused to let him bring you up.”

“He told you!” I flamed.

“He wondered what he had done.  And as you wouldn’t let him come within speaking distance of you, he came to me.”