“You don’t look as if you’d had much.  At any rate, you are none the better for it, as far as I can see.  I said when we first met that you had improved.  Now I take it all back, for I don’t think you half so nice as when I left you at home.  You have grown abominably lazy, you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones.  With money, talent, position, health, and beauty, ah you like that old Vanity!  But it’s the truth, so I can’t help saying it, with all these splendid things to use and enjoy, you can find nothing to do but dawdle, and instead of being the man you ought to be, you are only . . .” there she stopped, with a look that had both pain and pity in it.

“Saint Laurence on a gridiron,” added Laurie, blandly finishing the sentence.  But the lecture began to take effect, for there was a wide-awake sparkle in his eyes now and a half-angry, half-injured expression replaced the former indifference.

“I supposed you’d take it so.  You men tell us we are angels, and say we can make you what we will, but the instant we honestly try to do you good, you laugh at us and won’t listen, which proves how much your flattery is worth.”  Amy spoke bitterly, and turned her back on the exasperating martyr at her feet.

In a minute a hand came down over the page, so that she could not draw, and Laurie’s voice said, with a droll imitation of a penitent child, “I will be good, oh, I will be good!”

But Amy did not laugh, for she was in earnest, and tapping on the outspread hand with her pencil, said soberly, “Aren’t you ashamed of a hand like that?  It’s as soft and white as a woman’s, and looks as if it never did anything but wear Jouvin’s best gloves and pick flowers for ladies.  You are not a dandy, thank Heaven, so I’m glad to see there are no diamonds or big seal rings on it, only the little old one Jo gave you so long ago.  Dear soul, I wish she was here to help me!”

“So do I!”

The hand vanished as suddenly as it came, and there was energy enough in the echo of her wish to suit even Amy.  She glanced down at him with a new thought in her mind, but he was lying with his hat half over his face, as if for shade, and his mustache hid his mouth.  She only saw his chest rise and fall, with a long breath that might have been a sigh, and the hand that wore the ring nestled down into the grass, as if to hide something too precious or too tender to be spoken of.  All in a minute various hints and trifles assumed shape and significance in Amy’s mind, and told her what her sister never had confided to her.  She remembered that Laurie never spoke voluntarily of Jo, she recalled the shadow on his face just now, the change in his character, and the wearing of the little old ring which was no ornament to a handsome hand.  Girls are quick to read such signs and feel their eloquence.  Amy had fancied that perhaps a love trouble was at the bottom of the alteration, and now she was sure of it.  Her keen eyes filled, and when she spoke again, it was in a voice that could be beautifully soft and kind when she chose to make it so.