266
XVIII Converts Of Love 282
XIX She Doubts Her Theory 301
XX She Proves Her Principle 312
XXI Her One Exception 332

EVE TO THE RESCUE

EVE TO THE RESCUE

CHAPTER I

IN DEFIANCE OF DUTY

"To-morrow being Saturday afternoon," began Eveley, deftly slipping a
dish of sweet pickles beyond the reach of the covetous fat fingers of
little niece Nathalie,--"to-morrow being Saturday afternoon--"

"Doesn't to-morrow start at sunrise as usual?" queried her brother-in-law
curiously.

"As every laborer knows," said Eveley firmly, "Saturday begins with the
afternoon off. And I am a laborer. Therefore, to-morrow being
Saturday-afternoon-off, and since I have trespassed on your hospitality
for a period of two months, it behooves me to find me a home and settle
down."

"Oh, Eveley," protested her sister in a soft troubled voice, "don't be
disagreeable. You talk as if we were strangers. Aren't we the only folks
you have? And aren't you my own and only baby sister? If you can't live
with us, where can you live?"

"As it says in the Bible," explained Eveley, truthfully if unscripturally,
"no two families are small enough for one house."

"But who calls you a family?" interrupted the brother-in-law.

"I do. And nice and sweet as you all are, and adorable as I am well aware
am I, all of you and all of me can not be confined to one house."

"But we have counted on it," persisted Winifred earnestly. "We have
looked forward to it. We have always said that you would come to us when
Aunt Eloise died,--and she did--and you must. We--we expect it."

"'England expects every man to do his duty,'" quoted Burton in a
sepulchral voice.

Then Eveley rose in her place, tall and formidable. "That is it,--duty.
Then let me announce right now, once and for all, Burton Raines and
Winifred, eternally and everlastingly, I do not believe in duty. No one
shall do his duty by me. I publicly protest against it. I won't have it.
I have had my sneaking suspicions of duty for a long time, and lately I
have been utterly convinced of the folly and the sin of it. Whenever any
one has anything hateful or disagreeable to do, he draws a long voice and
says it is his duty. It seems that every mean thing in the world is
somebody's duty. Duty has been the curse of civilization for lo, these
many years!" Then she sat do