“Please sit up and drink this tea and eat this toast, sister,” she said, pleadingly.
“Thank you, dear,” said Maria, “but I don't feel as if I could eat anything.”
“It's real nice,” said Evelyn, looking with a childish wistfulness from her sister to the toast. Maria could not withstand the look. She raised herself in bed and let Evelyn place the tray on her knees. Then she forced herself to drink the tea and eat the toast. Evelyn all the time watched her with that sweet wistfulness of expression which was one of her chief charms. Evelyn, when she looked that way, was irresistible. There was so much anxious love in her tender face that it made it fairly angelic. Evelyn's dark hair was tumbling about her face like a child's, in a way which she often wore it when at home when there was no company. It was tied with a white ribbon bow. She wore a black skirt and a little red breakfast-jacket faced with white. As her sister gradually despatched the tea and toast, the look of wistfulness on her face changed to one of radiant delight. She clapped her hands.
“There,” she said, “I knew you would eat your breakfast if I brought it to you. Wasn't that toast nice?”
“Delicious.”
“I made it my own self. Aunt Maria was cross. Don't you think it is odd that any one who loves anybody should ever be cross?”
“It often happens,” said Maria, laying back on her pillows.
“Of course, Aunt Maria loves us both, but she loves you especially; but she is often cross with you. I don't understand it.”
“She doesn't love me any better than she does you, dear,” said Maria.
“Oh yes, she does; but I am not jealous. I am very glad I am not, for I could be terribly jealous.”