ime Tom Reed had
reached the gate, and his cigar was going out in a shower of sparks on
the gravel walk, and all four sisters were greeting him and urging upon
his acceptance the fifth chair. Annie, watching, saw that the young man
seemed to hesitate. Then her heart leaped and she heard him speak
quite plainly, with a note of defiance and irritation, albeit with
embarrassment.

"Is Miss Annie in?" asked Tom Reed.

Imogen answered first, and her harsh voice was honey-sweet.

"I fear dear Annie is out," she said. "She will be so sorry to miss
you."

Annie, at her window, made a sudden passionate motion, then she sat
still and listened. She argued fiercely that she was right in so doing.
She felt that the time had come when she must know, for the sake of her
own individuality, just what she had to deal with in the natures of her
own kith and kin. Dear Annie had turned in her groove of sweetness and
gentle yielding, as all must turn who have any strength of character
underneath the sweetness and gentleness. Therefore Annie, at her window
above, listened.

At first she heard little that bore upon herself, for the conversation
was desultory, about the weather and general village topics. Then Annie
heard her own name. She was "dear Annie," as usual. She listened, fairly
faint with amazement. What she heard from that quartette of treble
voices down there in the moonlight seemed almost like a fairy-tale.
The sisters did not violently incriminate her. They were too astute for
that. They told half-truths. They told truths which were as shadows of
the real facts, and yet not to be contradicted. They built up between
them a story marvelously consistent, unless prearranged, and that Annie
did not think possible. George Wells figured in the tale, and there were
various hints and pauses concerning herself and her own character in
daily life, and not one item could be flatly denied, even if the girl
could have gone down there and, standing in the midst of that moonlit
group, given her sisters the lie.

Everything which they told, the whole structure of falsehood, had beams
and rafters of truth. Annie felt helpless before it all. To her fancy,
her sisters and Tom Reed seemed actually sitting in a fairy building
whose substance was utter falsehood, and yet which could not be utterly
denied. An awful sense of isolation possessed her. So these were her
own sisters, the sisters whom she had loved as a matter of the simplest
nature, w