"What do you mean by conquering--Belle?"
We sat down.
"My name is Alethea-Belle, a double name. Father wanted to call me Alethea; but mother fancied Belle. Father, you know, was a Massachusetts minister; mother came from way down south. She died when I was a child. She--she was not very strong, poor mother, but father," she spoke proudly, "father was the best man that ever lived."
All her self-consciousness had vanished. Somehow we felt that the daughter of the New England parson was speaking, not the child of the invertebrate Southerner.
"I had to take to selling books," she continued, speaking more to herself than to us, "because of Belle. That miserable girl got into debt. Father left her a little money. Belle squandered it sinfully on clothes and pleasure. She'd a rose silk dress----"
"A rose silk dress?" repeated Ajax.
"It was just too lovely--that dress," said the little schoolmarm, reflectively.
"Even Alethea could not resist it," said I.
She blushed, and her shyness, her awkwardness, returned.
"Alethea had to pay for it," she replied primly. "I ask your pardon for speaking so foolishly and improperly of--myself."