“Hush, dear! Somebody will hear you. Yes she’s pretty awful.”
“But, Nellie, can’t we do something about it? Can’t Carey be ordered not to go with a thing like that any more? Why, even the girls in my school are talking about them. They call her my brother’s girl! Nellie, aren’t you going to do anything about it? Aren’t you going to tell father, and have it stopped?”
“Hush, darling! Yes, I’m going to do something—but I don’t know what yet. I don’t know what there is to do.”
She tried to smile with her lips in a tremble; and, looking down, she saw that tears were rolling down the little sister’s cheeks.
“Darling! Don’t do that!” she cried, roused out of her own distress. “Here, take my handkerchief, and brighten up a little. You mustn’t cry here; people will think something dreadful has happened to you.”
“They can’t think any worse than it is,” murmured Louise, snubbing off a sob with the proffered handkerchief. “To have my nice, handsome big brother be a big fool like that! Oh, I’d like to kill that girl! I would! I’d like to choke her!”
“Louie! Stop! This is awful!” cried Cornelia, horrified. “You mustn’t talk that way about anybody, no matter how much of a fool she is. Perhaps there’s another side to it. Perhaps Carey is just as much to blame. Perhaps the girl doesn’t know any better. Maybe she has no mother to teach her. Maybe Carey is sorry for her.”
“He—didn’t look sorry; he looked glad!” murmured the little girl, trying to bring her emotions into control; “and anyhow I can’t help hating her. Even if she hasn’t got a mother, she doesn’t need to dip her face in a flour-barrel like that, and make eyes at my brother.”
“Listen, Louie.” Cornelia’s voice was very quiet, and she felt a sudden strength come to her from the need to help the little girl. “Dear, it won’t do any good to hate her; it will only do you harm, and mix us up so we can’t think straight. Besides, it’s wicked to hate anybody. Suppose you stop being so excited and let us put some good common sense into this thing. There must be a way to work it out. If it’s wrong for Carey to go with her, there will be a way somehow to make him see it. Until Carey sees it himself there isn’t a bit of use in our trying to stop his going with her. He probably has got to the place where rouge and powder are attractive to him, or else perhaps there is more to the girl than just the outside. At any rate, we’ve got to find out what it is about her that attracts our brother. And, Louie, do you know I’ve a notion that there’s nobody but God can help us in this thing? Mother used to say that, you know, when any big trouble came; and several times lately when I’ve been worried about things I’ve said, ‘O God, help me,’ and things have seemed to straighten out right away. Suppose you and I try that tonight.”
Louise looked up through her tears, and smiled.