"I'm not surprised that you took a minute to think it over," she continued seriously. "I know it won't be easy."
"Well, I said I wanted a tough job to tackle," said Lucy, rising from her chair with a faint sigh. "Don't expect any startling results," she warned her mother, breaking into another smile as she looked back at her. "I'll get Marian now and go over to the Red Cross for a while. I promised Julia."
Half an hour later, when the three girls were at work over a table of gauze in the Red Cross rooms, Lucy began wondering to herself, even while she talked of other things, how she was going to accomplish what she had undertaken. She glanced at Marian, whose golden head was industriously bent over her work, wishing rather helplessly for a wand which, with one quick wave, would transform Marian into a strong, active girl, with no nerves to bother about.
Any one spending the day at the Gordon house now would probably have seen little to find fault with in Marian and much that was attractive. Nobody gave her more credit than Lucy for the change in her during the past few months, which had turned Lucy's feeling for her cousin from pity to warm liking and even admiration. But the improvement had only begun, and it only persisted as long as Marian was amused or interested or her sympathy aroused. There were still times of sulky indifference, of listless weariness, and most of all of obstinate refusal to help herself or exert her will to exercise or to eat her meals when she did not happen to feel like it. These were the hurdles in Lucy's way if she was to make Marian well and happy as every fourteen-year-old girl ought to be, and the obstacles loomed rather large just now, even with Marian before her in her brightest mood, and looking so pretty as she laughed and talked while her fingers worked that no one would have credited her with a single pout.
Unconsciously Lucy commenced the best way, for as she listened to Marian telling Julia the story of Happy's complete destruction of her best hat, Lucy summed up two great qualities in Marian's favor, and began to feel a wider understanding and sympathy with her cousin for thinking of them. Marian was extremely generous. She loved to give things away, and the loss of any of her own possessions worried her very little, or if as in this case it was a disappointment, she bore it good-humoredly. She even gave the puppy a forgiving pat with the poppies torn from her hat still clenched in his wicked jaws. Here Lucy skipped to the second point in her catalogue of virtues. Marian was certainly not vain or even conscious of her beauty. Beyond a careful regard for her appearance which had been taught her since babyhood, she gave little thought to herself and laughed in honest amusement if Lucy grew enthusiastic sometimes when her pretty little cousin put on something especially becoming.
Occupied with these thoughts, Lucy did not get so much work done as the others, besides being rather silent, and provokingly failing to answer several times when she was spoken to.
"Lucy Gordon, you've only made fifteen compresses, and you have been quiet enough to work, goodness knows," said Julia at last, looking at her friend with accusing eyes. "Of course if you're thinking out how to end the war or something really important to the country we won't disturb you, but you might think aloud. I'd like to hear it."