“You boys will have to lunch alone today,” Margaret told them, “for we girls must finish sweeping the living-room and then while we dine, the dust will be settling.”
The boys pretended to be greatly disappointed, but that night at dinner Virg and Margaret made up for their seeming neglect. They dressed in their prettiest house gowns and laughed and chattered, making the meal a merry one.
“How everything shines!” Malcolm declared as he looked at the glistening glass and silver. “You aren’t expecting company, are you, Sis?”
“Of course not!” Virginia replied. “You know we always go over the house this way every spring and fall and many times in between.”
Later in the evening when the cow-boy had gone to the bunkhouse and the three young people sat about the library table, the girls sewing, and Malcolm reading a cattleman’s magazine, Virg suddenly exclaimed, “Just think Megsy, tomorrow Tom is to know the wonderful news. How I wish that he might be able to leave the sheep ranch right away and come back to us. I do hope that he has not entered into an agreement of any sort promising to remain with Mr. Wilson for a definite length of time.”
The girl, happening to glance up just then, found the kind, gray eyes of her brother earnestly regarding her. “Do you care so much about Tom’s coming, Virginia?” Malcolm asked. Then fearing that his question would be an embarrassing one for his sister to answer (for he had noted the sudden rose in her cheeks) he hurriedly added, “I, too, will be glad to see Tom. I believe he will be free to come whenever he wishes.”
After that Malcolm seemed to read on, apparently deeply absorbed in the articles in his magazine, but in reality he did not even see the printed page for he had suddenly realized that his sister was a little girl no longer, that indeed she was verging on young womanhood, and that some day, perhaps soon, she would care more for someone else than she did for him; she might even go somewhere else to live and leave him alone on the V. M. Ranch.
After about half an hour of vain endeavor to grasp the meaning of the scientific article, Malcolm closed the magazine and, looking up, caught an amused twinkle in Margaret’s violet eyes and saw the dimple that he had always thought the prettiest thing a girl could possess.
Leaning over Megsy said merrily, “Malcolm, hand me that magazine! I am going to give you an oral exam in what you have read. You have been staring at one page for so long, I think you must have been memorizing the commas.”
Malcolm laughed and said irrelevantly, “Thank you for darning my socks, Mistress Megsy. I see you have one now in your nimble fingers.”