“What good will yes do?”
“I mean I want you to promise to—to—— Well, I’ll tell you, and you must say ‘yes,’ or I shall go straight to work and have a relapse.”
“You shall not if I can help it.”
“Then I am sure of the yes. It’s just this way. You know you are my very dearest, darlingest girl, and mamma and I should still have been struggling with boarding-house breakfasts but for you; and so mamma is going to rent this house next year.”
“To Mrs. Phillips?”
“Yes. And mamma wants to take a cunning house, or maybe a little apartment, near the college, so we can still have a home to ourselves, and we want, we invite, we insist on your coming and staying with us as our guest while we are at college together—you and I. Oh, Persis, it would make us so happy. Aren’t you my cousin, and haven’t we a right to you?” And Annis leaned over to put her little thin hand on Persis.
There was no immediate reply from the latter.
“Please,” pleaded Annis. “I feel myself getting paler.”
Persis laughed, but her eyes were downcast to hide their moisture. “I don’t know why I feel like crying,” she said. “You dear, sweet thing! If the family consent I say yes, but I don’t like the idea of sponging.”
“It will not be—no, no!”