"If they weren't the same, where on earth could he have bought any like them? They don't make them in this country," he said, when he told me of it.
Harvie, having awakened to the fact that Annie was a very charming, beautiful girl, whom he had for years looked upon as a kind of sister but who was not a sister and was moreover very much admired by other members of his sex, now was making up for lost time as fast as possible. He had no feeling of noblesse oblige in regard to Sleepy. He surely had as much right to love Annie as George Massie had and more right to tell her of it, since she was almost his sister. He hovered around her to the last, doing a million little things to help her and assuring her in the meantime of his undying affection, but Annie never did seem to understand that he was being any more than a big brother to her. Never having had a big brother, she did not know that big brothers do not as a rule express their love for the little sisters in such glowing terms.
George Massie went gloomily off when the house-party broke up. He felt that he could not in decency stay longer at Maxton since all the others were leaving, although he longed to be near Annie. He sought me out on the boat when we were bound for Richmond and sighing like a furnace sank down by my side. If it had been a sailboat we were traveling in instead of an old side-wheel steamboat, I am sure the great sigh he heaved would have sent us faster on our way.
"Something fierce!" he muttered.
"Yes, it is hard, but maybe they will come back sometime, or perhaps when you get your degree you can go over to England and see her."
"Get my degree! Do you think I am going back to the University? Not on your life!"
"But what will you do? You must have some ambition," I said rather severely.
"Yes, I've got ambition all right; I'm going to do my bit in France as stretcher bearer. I decided last night."
"Really?"
"Sure! I'm just wasting my time at the University. I talked it out with Annie. She has lots of feeling about England and the war, and if she cares, then it is up to me to help her country some."