"Bab?" exclaimed Jessamy, so loudly that Phyllis had to warn her to be careful. "But that is impossible! Why, Tom is beginning to care for you."
"How did you know that?" demanded Phyllis, sitting up straight. "Bab said, too, she had thought so for some time. I never dreamed such a thing until Ruth told us something to-day. It is all horrid, Jessamy, and I wish we were back to our doll days."
"What did Ruth tell you? What makes you fancy such nonsense about Bab?" asked Jessamy; but, as she spoke, the memory of Bab's curt manner when she had spoken of Tom's caring for Phyllis came back to her with a pang of foreboding.
Phyllis recounted, without interruption from Jessamy, the secret that Ruth had discovered, and Bab's subsequent behavior. Then, without waiting for comment from Jessamy, she said: "There's only one thing for me to do, Jessamy; I'm going to slip out and leave Tom to love the right girl, if he loves a Wyndham at all. I'm going to write to Boston to Mrs. Dean, and ask if she will take me, as she said she would. I shall stay there until the trouble blows over, and you will get a maid to do the work, which would be too much for you without me; we could afford it as it is, so we certainly can when I am earning money."
Jessamy rose and put her arms around Phyllis, kneeling at her side. "My dear, good, unselfish Phyllis," she said, "if you won't let me tell mama—and I think it is right not to, because it would worry her dreadfully to think there was no way of keeping pain from one or the other of her girls—you force me to act as I know she would if she were told. Bab is not the only one to be considered; you have just as much right to be happy as she. And there is Tom. It is you, not Bab, he has turned to; is it just to give him no thought? And are you sure you don't care a little bit for him, dear?"
"I have tried to be very honest, Jessamy," said Phyllis, slowly. "I like Tom; I believe I could do more than like him by and by. Wait! But I don't love him; I never thought of loving any one until to-day. I liked to think of it—I'll confess that—but before the thought had a chance to do any harm I found out about Babbie; wasn't it lucky, Jessamy? As to Tom, it is only a boyish fancy, and he will get so much the better bargain in getting Bab that there is no reason to be sorry for him."
"Neither mama nor I would admit that, though Babbie is a splendid, true, loving girl," said Jessamy. "But there never was but one Phyllis, and you must know that if Bab is my own sister, you have always been even dearer to me than she. I won't have you sacrifice yourself, Phyllis, not for any, or all of us, so you may make up your mind this moment that I will not help your plan out till I have thought a long time. And how do you suppose we shall bear letting you go?"
"And how do you suppose I shall bear going?" retorted Phyllis. "Even Trucie is dear, and I can't bear to leave him. But it is the only way to bring things straight. As to sacrificing myself, if I were to be happy at Bab's expense, I couldn't be happy—to make a fine bull. But don't let us get sentimental and exaggerate the case, Jessamy. I am just running away from a possibility; I might have something beautiful in the end, if there were no reason why I should not have it; but again I might never find it beautiful. In the meantime here is Babbie, really unhappy, jealous of me, wanting positively what I might possibly have wanted, but never could want now. Do you realize how dreadful it was to have Bab, our own Bab, shrink away from me when I kissed her, and to feel that she was actually jealous of me? Why, I wouldn't have such a thing as that between our love, breaking up the fondest affection three girls ever felt for one another, for all the splendid boys in the world! So help me away, Jessamy; help me get auntie's consent, and help me keep up heart to leave home for the first time in my life; for, honestly, I am a coward at the thought of it. And, after I am gone, help Barbara be happy."
"Do you ever think, my darling old Loyalty," said Jessamy, with a hug, "that you may be throwing away a very precious thing—for I feel sure you could care for Tom, and he is not a man to be met with every day—throwing it away all for nothing? That you may wean him from you without turning him to Bab, and that Bab herself may be passing through a mere girlish fancy?"