"No, indeed," laughed Harcourt; "we'll all turn missionaries on those terms."
"Yes," said De Forrest, "I'll promise to be a devoted missionary all my life."
"There, I said that you would have a religion you liked," retorted Lottie, pirouetting to the dining-room door. "But I'm too far gone for any such mild remedies. There's Bel, she's trying to be good. You may all kiss her"; and, with a look at Hemstead he did not understand, she vanished.
CHAPTER XIII.
A LOVER QUENCHED.
Bel followed her friend to their room, full of irritable reproaches. But Lottie puzzled her again, as she had done before that day. Gayety vanished from the face as light from a clouded landscape, and with an expression that was even scowling and sullen she sat brooding before the fire, heeding Bel's complaining words no more than she would the patter of rain against the window.
Then Bel changed the tune; retaining the same minor key, however.
"I suppose now that you will give up your shameful plot against
Mr. Hemstead, as a matter of course."
"I don't know what I'll do," snapped Lottie.
"Don't know what you'll do! Why, he about the same as saved our lives this evening."