"Better let him settle it in his own fashion," was the conclusion Ralph reached. "But if Lef Seller has had anything to do with it, I'm sorry for him, that's all. Once Frank makes up his mind that these pranks of Lef have reached a limit, he's going to give him an awful licking; and I know it."
Frank had been watching his sister Helen at supper. He knew that there was something worrying her, too, and the strange thought came that perhaps it might be along the same lines as his own vexation.
"I wonder, now, could that be possible?" was the question that kept confronting him.
Having once given way to this suspicion, he could not refrain from trying to find out the truth. Helen had gone upstairs, on some small excuse. He was surprised to find her in her room, and with traces of tears in her beautiful eyes.
"Why, what's the matter, sister mine? Has anyone been abusing you? I wonder if I could guess. Is it about Minnie?" he asked, gently, for Frank was very fond of his only sister, but two years younger than himself.
She looked at him in surprise.
"Why, Frank, however did you guess?" she exclaimed.
"Because," he replied, steadily, "she gave me the cut direct when Ralph and myself were heading home from the athletic field this evening. She and Dottie Warren were in the carriage, and Minnie looked right through me when I bowed. Whew! it gave me a shock, I tell you."
"The mean thing, to carry it to you! I suppose I've said something or other to give her offense, although I tried in vain to remember any cause; but since she chooses to include all my family in her resentment, I'm not going to do the least thing in the way of an apology," exclaimed Helen, warmly.
"I'm of the impression that it's me who's to blame, though I don't know what I've done," said Frank, immediately. "If I did, I'd apologize decently, and have it over with, whether she accepted it or not. But Ralph suggests that perhaps it's the work of some outsider, who wants to make trouble between Minnie and the Allens."