"Tell! Of course not! But Lucy, what ails you is you have been so used to care and sorrow that you don't dare to catch the least ray of sunshine that comes to you. Now, that's all wrong. You ought to talk with my mother. Come and see us some day, on the knoll, will you? Come soon."
"Oh may I? How lovely to ask me!" Lucy's face fairly shone at the thought. "Good by," she whispered, fairly squeezing Camille's little brown paw, "good-by. I'll come, sure," and dropping the thick veil to hide smiles rather than tears, she glided out between the ranks of impatient children, who looked after her with awed interest.
That evening Camille, full of frank curiosity, tripped across to the other house, tapping lightly on the side door opening upon the driveway, and entered without waiting for admission. The room she stepped into was unlighted, except from the hall beyond, but crossing both she came into a delightful little apartment, softly illumined with lamps which shed a rosy light through their silken shades. A couple of logs burned on the brass andirons of the fireplace with an aromatic odor that suggested deep pine woods.
Before them a couch was drawn, upon which Joyce nestled lazily amid a nest of pillows. At a table, little withdrawn, Ellen was reading aloud from a late magazine, the rosy light making her look almost young and handsome to-night. She withdrew, after a word or two of greeting, while Joyce without stirring, said drowsily,
"I know you won't ask me to get up, Camille; you are too good-natured. Come, take this easy little rocker and tell me all you know."
"No thank you. I've come to put you to the question, my lady! Who told you you could go off to the city with that handsome George Dalton when I had given up the trip just because I hated to go alone?"
"Had you? What a pity we did not know!" The lamps made Joyce's cheeks a lovely color. "Of course our business would have been a bore to you, but we could have met for a nice time somewhere, later."
"How do you know it would have been a bore? And what was 'our' business, anyhow?"
"Camille, we are both convinced that poor Lozcoski has been unjustly accused, and Murfree is the real criminal. To get the Pole out of prison, and to keep Murfree out, requires some man[oe]uvring, and a lot of 'lawing,' as Gilbert calls it."
"But why keep that old Murfree out? I should think he deserved all he can get."