As it was, believing in her wholly, and being just then desirous that she should appear perfect in the eyes of his father, he addressed her in a disturbed, not to say almost vexed tone, albeit it was a low one,—
"Do, Louise, pretend to eat something, whether you accomplish it or not."
Louise could never understand how it was; she had not supposed herself one of the nervous sort; but just then and there arose such a lump in her throat, that to have taken another mouthful would have been impossible; and, to her dismay and chagrin, there rushed into her eyes actual tears!
Then up rose John to the emergencies of the situation.
"Why, in the name of common sense, can't you all let folks eat what they like, without nagging at them all the time? I never touch cabbage, and won't no more than I will touch a frog, and you let me alone; why can't you her?"
Whereupon Dorothy was so amazed, that she continued pouring milk into the bowl long after it had brimmed, her eyes fixed, meantime, on her younger brother's face. As for Lewis, he seemed stricken with remorse for his words, apparently realizing at this moment how they sounded. But Louise was so pleased with John's evident desire to champion her, and so amused that it should seem to be necessary to shield her on a question of cabbage or not cabbage, that the ludicrous side of the matter came uppermost, and, as she laughed, the lump in her throat vanished.
"Thank you," she said gaily to John; "don't you like cabbage, either? I'm glad of it. We'll form a compact to stand by each other for freedom without cabbage."
Something approaching to a smile hovered over John's face, and Dorothy giggled outright.