’Jane, I should never know happiness if I hadn’t my little sister to come and talk to.  Don’t think like that, don’t for my sake, Janey dear!’

They laid their cheeks together upon the pillows.

‘He’ll be a good husband,’ Jane whispered.  ’You know that, don’t you, Emmy?’

‘No better in all this world!  Why do you ask so?’

’No—­no—­I didn’t mean anything.  He said you mustn’t wait much longer, didn’t he?’

’Yes, he did.  But he’d rather see me doing what’s right.  I often feel myself such a poor thing by him.  I must try and show him that I do my best to follow his example.  I’m ashamed almost, sometimes, to think I shall be his wife.  It ought to be some one better than me.’

’Where would he find any one better, I’d like to know?  Let him come and ask me about that!  There’s no man good enough for you, sister Emmy.’

Richard was talking with his sister Alice; the others had gone to bed, and the house was quiet.

‘I wasn’t at all pleased to see that man here to-night,’ he said.  ’You shouldn’t have been so ready to say yes when he asked you to go to the theatre.  It was like his impudence!’

’Why, what ever’s the harm, Dick?  Besides, we must have some friends, and—­really he looks a gentleman.’

I’ll tell you a secret,’ returned her brother, with a half-smile, half-sneer.  ’You don’t know a gentleman yet, and you’ll have to be very careful till you do.’

‘How am I to learn, then?’

’Just wait.  You’ve got enough to do with your music and your reading.  Time enough for getting acquainted with gentlemen.’

‘Aren’t you going to let anybody come and see us, then?’

‘You have the old friends,’ replied Richard, raising his chin.

’You’re thinking of Mr. Dabbs, I suppose.  What did he want to see you for, Dick?’

Alice looked at him from the corner of her eye.

’I think I’ll tell you.  He says he doesn’t intend to come here again.  You’ve made him feel uncomfortable.’

The girl laughed.

’I can’t help how he feels, can I?  At all events, Mr. Dabbs isn’t a gentleman, is he, now?’

’He’s an honest man, and that’s saying a good deal, let me tell you.  I rather thought you liked him.’

‘Liked him?  Oh, in a way, of course.  But things are different.’

‘How different?’

Alice looked up, put her head on one side, smiled her prettiest, and asked—­

’Is it true, what ‘Arry says—­about the money?’

He had wanted to get at this, and was, on the whole, not sorry to hear it.  Richard was studying the derivation of virtue from necessity.

‘What if it is?’ he asked.

’Well, it makes things more different even than I thought, that’s all.’

She sprang to her feet and danced across the room, one hand bent over her head.  It was not an ungraceful picture.  Her brother smiled.