Jack Everett flushed. He was a splendid looking fellow, big and brown, with light hair of almost the same coppery tones as his sister's, and although but eighteen was nearly six feet tall. It was his last year at the Male High School of which his father was President, and already he had passed with high honors his entrance examinations for Dartmouth College.
"Oh, I say, Meg, don't pile it on," he protested. "You are handsome enough all right, and it was only on your own account that I was wishing you could run things better."
Meg had evidently given up the idea of her engagement by this time, for she had seated herself in a big chair with her small brother on her lap and was rocking him slowly back and forth, his head resting on her shoulder.
"You are right, Jack, I am not offended," she answered. "I know I am a poor manager, but somehow I don't just take to housekeeping and mothering naturally. Men always think girls know such things by instinct. They don't understand that we have to learn them just as boys learn bookkeeping or office work and I have never had any one to teach me."
"The late Miss Everett," a new voice called unexpectedly, apparently coming from about midway up the front steps. "Meg, may I come on upstairs, the front door was half open and I knew full well that you would never keep your promise to me unless I came and got you."
Meg put down her small burden hastily and John unconsciously stiffened his broad shoulders until his appearance was more than ever military.
"Come on up, Betty dear, I am sorry I am such a sight, but the baby has just gotten hurt and I have to give up the club meeting," Meg called back.
The next instant Betty Ashton appeared at the open bedroom door, wearing a light woolen motor coat, a blue hat with a red-brown wing in it fitting close over her hair which was tucked up out of sight in a very grown-up fashion. She had a great deal of color and her eyes were bright with desire.
"Oh, you can't disappoint me, Meg; I shall never forgive you," she protested, and then came to a sudden stop seeing that John Everett was also in her friend's room. But as he bowed low to her it was impossible for him to have observed her slight blush.
"Do take Meg with you by force, Miss Ashton," he urged. (It was always quite thrilling to Betty at fifteen to be called "Miss Ashton," and no other boy of her acquaintance seemed to realize that one could grow out of being addressed as "Betty".) "She spoils the small boy and all the rest of us far too much. 'Bumps' has just taken another tumble." Jack Everett then backed out of the room in soldierly fashion and at the instant of his disappearance Betty tucked her arms about the small Horace, critically surveying his injured eye.