“What a silly old goose you were to go having absurd thoughts about me, and how dared you, how dared you think I was in love with any one?”
“I did not know,” penitently, “you kept so still about Monsieur Grémond and he was in love with you, wasn’t he?”
“Yes dear. He came this afternoon and I sent him away. We do not want to have secrets from each other, do we, old girl, but I never talked to you much about him because there was a time when I did not quite know whether I cared for him or not. Perhaps back in the old days, if he had asked me, I might have said yes, but I doubt it—it was more a sort of fascination he exercised over me for awhile and now I am truly thankful he has come and gone. He has removed every particle of doubt as to my attitude toward him.”
“Oh, I am so glad. I couldn’t bear the thought of his carrying you off to France.”
Julie’s eyes opened wide. “Did you suppose I’d go away and leave you and Daddy and the rest?” in a tone of astonishment.
“Some Prince Charming is coming along to carry you off some day, Julie dear,” said Hester, who could bring herself to regard such an event with some degree of complacency now that it was not an immediate fact. “I’m not quite such a selfish pig” (she never spared herself in the matter of epithets), “as to expect to have you always.”
“I think we are sufficient unto each other now, dear,” said Julie seriously, “and we may always be, for all the years to come; but if some day our lives should change—a new interest enter in—we’ll share it and make it beautify the lives of both of us just as we’ve always shared every joy and sorrow ever since we were babies.” She kissed her sister solemnly.
“You blessed Julie!” was the response.
When the gas was out and Hester, the irrepressible, finally in bed, the light of the full moon came streaming into the little room. And lingering with a caressing touch it fell upon a white pillow on which a curly golden head and a sleek dark one lay pressed close together. In the solemn stillness the breathing of two slender forms told that the excitement of the past forty-eight hours had at last ended in much needed sleep.