"Certainly," said Sharlee.
"I'll step into the hall," said kind-faced Mr. Dayne.
"No, no. Indeed you mustn't. We will."
Sharlee faced the young man in the sunlit hall with sympathetic expectancy and some curiosity in her eyes.
"There is," he began without preliminaries, "a girl at the house where I board, who has been confined to her bed with sickness for some weeks. It appears that she has grown thin and weak, so that they will not permit her to graduate at her school. This involves a considerable disappointment to her."
"You are speaking of Fifi," said Sharlee, gently.
"That is the girl's name, if it is of any interest to you—"
"You know she is my first cousin."
"Possibly so," he replied, as though to say that no one had the smallest right to hold him responsible for that. "In this connection, a small point has arisen upon which advice is required, the advice of a woman. You happen to be the only other girl I know. This," said Queed, "is why I have called."
Sharlee felt flattered. "You are most welcome to my advice, Mr. Queed."