"You needn't mind," said Happie rather ungraciously. "I was perfectly satisfied with you as you were. You seem away off, Margery. I don't know what it is, but I feel as if you were up on those mountain tops, where I couldn't touch you."
"You can touch me very well, you dear little Happie-goosie," said Margery, encircling her sister's head with her arms, and drawing it close to her as she bent over her. "It is the witchery of the sea that you feel, Hapsie; I haven't recovered from the effect of the mermaids' songs. I am glad our room looks towards those mountains," she added irrelevantly. "I shall sit here lots and lots to think, and to love them."
"Think! To moon and build castles, you mean, if you are going to look at them like that! Oh, Margery, have you come to the mooning age?" cried Happie shaking herself free of the encircling arms, and sitting erect to look into Margery's face.
Their mother entered as Happie made her protest, and looked sharply from one to the other of the girls, Happie, rumpled, flushed and vaguely worried, Margery fair, serene, smiling to herself in the moonlight. She caught her breath quickly, but only said, as she seated herself on the edge of the bed: "I think you said at tea that you had not seen much of Happie's friends, not even of Auntie Cam's Edith, Margery. I suppose they drifted into a younger set and amusements than yours. But did you find any girls of your own age that you liked? You have not told us much of your new friends."
"There were several nice girls there, mother. Two I liked very much," said Margery slowly.
"The two of whom you wrote us?" asked her mother. "Yet I haven't precisely a clear impression of them."
"No, mother; I wanted to tell you all about it when I came," said Margery. "One was a Boston girl, and the other from Baltimore. They were both nice; I saw a good deal of them, and we are going to keep up our friendship. But—I was going to tell you—the girl from Baltimore had a brother, six years older than I. He had had typhoid fever, so his vacation lasted all summer. They had a cottage—Auntie Cam knows them, and likes them all, very much. I think, perhaps, I saw more—or rather I was—I think the Baltimore girl's brother and I were more friendly, more congenial, don't you see? than even those two girls and I."
"It is pleasant to have a friend, older and wiser than oneself, little Margery," said her mother, feeling her way.
"Yes, that's just it!" cried Margery eagerly. "He was ever so much wiser than I, and so nice, mother! You will like him. We used to read together. Auntie Cam and his mother would sew, and it seemed as if he read to me chiefly—I don't mean that conceitedly, but it really did! And then he often took his mother, or Auntie Cam, or Mary, his sister, rowing, and I always was asked. He is nice, truly, mother. He has taught me a great deal. I feel sure you will like him."
"Am I likely to meet him, dear? Of course I should like any one deserving of such high praise, but Baltimore is not precisely in our neighborhood," suggested her mother.