"Very fairly."
"H'm! You see, when they do their best they are bound to be moaning and groaning, these poets. Now, the man that chose these things, was he a jaundiced kind of person, very sad and sorry?"
"Quite the contrary. I should say he's as cheerful as a man may be who isn't a fool."
Val looked at him a moment.
"Then, I say it's a good thing there are women in the world." She had forgotten the third person for the moment, forgotten that Julia, too, professed to like things "blubbery." Even when she remembered, she only clapped the book to and said: "Oh, I shall be so late!"
"I envy you your walk." Julia tilted up her round chin, catching in her loose golden hair the sunlight that filtered through the fresh green maple leaves.
"I'm going up on the Hill; you'd both of you better come."
"Gracious! we'd be killed if we did."
"Yes, indeed," agreed Val, with conviction. It would be too dreadful to have Julia tacked on to them to-day. What was Ethan thinking of?
"I've come back from Sunday-school to take my mother to church; but there might be time for a little walk afterwards." Julia's air was charmingly wistful.