Vallejo streets his companions turned off to
the right.

"So long, Fred," he called as he turned his wheel to the left. "So long,
Charley."

"See you to-night!" they called back.

"No--I can't come," he answered.

"Aw, come on," they begged.

"No, I've got to dig.--So long!"

As he went on alone, his face grew grave and a vague worry came into his
eyes. He began resolutely to whistle, but this dwindled away till it was
a thin and very subdued little sound, which ceased altogether as he rode
up the driveway to a large two-storied house.

"Oh, Joe!"

He hesitated before the door to the library. Bessie was there, he knew,
studiously working up her lessons. She must be nearly through with them,
too, for she was always done before dinner, and dinner could not be many
minutes away. As for his lessons, they were as yet untouched. The thought
made him angry. It was bad enough to have one's sister--and two years
younger at that--in the same grade, but to have her continually head and
shoulders above him in scholarship was a most intolerable thing. Not that
he was dull. No one knew better than himself that he was not dull. But
somehow--he did not quite know how--his mind was on other things and he
was usually unprepared.

"Joe--please come here." There was the slightest possible plaintive note
in her voice this time.

"Well?" he said, thrusting aside the portiere with an impetuous movement.

He said it gruffly, but he was half sorry for it the next instant when he
saw a slender little girl regarding him with wistful eyes across the big
reading-table heaped with books. She was curled up, with pencil and pad,
in an easy-chair of such generous dimensions that it made her seem more
delicate and fragile than she really was.

"What is it, Sis?" he asked more gently, crossing over to her side.

She took his hand in hers and pressed it against her cheek, and as he
stood beside her came closer to him with a nestling movement.

"What is the matter, Joe dear?" she asked softly. "Won't you tell me?"

He remained silent. It struck him as ridiculous to confess his troubles
to a little sister, even if her reports _were_ higher than his. And the
little sister struck him as ridiculous to demand his troubles of him.
"What a soft cheek she has!" he thought as she pressed her face gently
against his hand. If he could but tear himself away--it was all so
foolish! Only he might hurt her feelings, and, in his experience, girls'
feeli