“What a sweet tempered creature she is,” said Harry, pleased with the calmness with which she regarded the loss of the two heroes.
“Oh,” replied Ruth, “it is easy enough for her to keep her temper. You have not left the party.”
“I,” he ejaculated, looking amazed.
“Yes,” pursued his sister. “You are almost as much of a stranger to her, and quite as agreeable as either of the other two.”
“Thank you,” said he, laughing. “Then how comes it that you and Grace do not value me as highly?”
“You are my brother,” she replied, “and Grace has known you since she was a baby. There is no throwing the light of imagination round a man so circumstanced.”
Harry laughed, and he did not like Mary the less for his sister’s explanation of her good temper.
“Mrs. Castleton,” he said, “I’ve been to look at the rooms. There’s only one on the second story, and another in the third. I presume you’ll take the one on the second.”
“Oh, yes,” she replied, “I never mount more stairs than necessary.”
“So I presumed,” he replied; and presently he came back with a smiling expression in his eyes, that made his sister ask him once or twice what was the matter, to which he replied each time, “nothing.”