“It isn’t fair to you, Lucy,” said Margaret.  “I don’t mind their nagging, but I do mind standing in your way.  And they’ll keep you back as long as I’m still on the market.”

“But I want to be kept back.”  Lucia spoke almost energetically, half lifting her form whose efflorescence had a certain charm because it was the over-luxuriance of healthy youth.  “I shan’t marry till I find the right man.  I’m a fatalist.  I believe there’s a man for me somewhere, and that he’ll find me, though I was hid—­ was hid—­even here.”  And she gazed romantically round at the enclosing walls of foliage.

The resolute lines, the “unfeminine” expression disappeared from her sister’s face.  She laughed softly and tenderly.  “What a dear you are!” she cried.

“You can scoff all you please,” retorted Lucia, stoutly.  “I believe it.  We’ll see if I’m not right. ...How lovely you did look last night! ...  You wait for your ‘right man.’  Don’t let them hurry you.  The most dreadful things happen as the result of girls’ hurrying, and then meeting him when it’s too late.”

“Not to women who have the right sort of pride.”  Margaret drew herself up, and once more her far-away but decided resemblance to Grandmother Bowker showed itself.  “I’d never be weak enough to fall in love unless I wished.”

“That’s not weakness; it’s strength,” declared Lucia, out of the fulness of experience gleaned from a hundred novels or more.

Margaret shook her head uncompromisingly.  “It’d be weakness for me.”  She dropped upon the bench beside her sister.  “I’m going to marry, and I’m going to superintend your future myself.  I’m not going to let them kill all the fine feeling in you, as they’ve killed it in me.”

“Killed it!” said Lucia, reaching out for her sister’s hand.  “You can’t say it’s dead, so long as you cry like you did last night, when you came home from the ball.”

Margaret reddened angrily, snatched her hand away.  “Shame on you!” she cried.  “I thought you were above spying.”

“The door was open between your bedroom and mine,” pleaded Lucia.  “I couldn’t help hearing.”

“You ought to have called out—­or closed it.  In this family I can’t claim even my soul as my own!”

“Please, dear,” begged Lucia, sitting up now and struggling to put her arms round her sister, “you don’t look on me as an outsider, do you?  Why, I’m the only one in all the world who knows you as you are—­how sweet and gentle and noble you are.  All the rest think you’re cold and cynical, and—­”

“So I am,” said Margaret reflectively, “except toward only you.  I’m grandmother over again, with what she’d call a rotten spot.”

“That rotten spot’s the real you,” protested Lucia.

Margaret broke away from her and resumed her walk.  “You’ll see,” said she, her face stern and bitter once more.

A maidservant descended the steps.  “Madam Bowker has come,” announced she, “and is asking for you, Miss Rita.”