indeed, if that could but be said truly,
and need not stop at brushes and boxes!

Imogen came back presently, and called to Etty from the stairs, and she
was obliged to go. Jeannie Hadden waited till they were fairly off the
landing, and then walked away herself, saying nothing, but wearing a
slightly displeased air.

Mrs. Thoresby and her elder daughter had taken a sort of dislike to
Dakie Thayne. They seemed to think he wanted putting down. Nobody knew
anything about him; he was well enough in his place, perhaps; but why
should he join himself to their party? The Routh girls had Frank
Scherman, and two or three other older attendants; among them he was
simply not thought of, often, at all. If it had not been for Leslie and
Mrs. Linceford, he would have found himself in Outledge, what boys of
his age are apt to find themselves in the world at large,--a sort of odd
or stray, not provided for anywhere in the general scheme of society.
For this very reason, discerning it quickly, Leslie had been loyal to
him; and he, with all his boy-vehemence of admiration and devotion, was
loyal to her. She had the feeling, motherly and sisterly in its mingled
instinct, by which all true and fine feminine natures are moved, in
behalf of the man-nature in its dawn, that so needs sympathy and gentle
consideration and provision, and that certain respect which calls forth
and fosters self-respect; to be allowed and acknowledged to be somebody,
lest for the want of this it should fail, unhappily, ever to be anybody.
She was not aware of it; she only followed her kindly instinct. So she
was doing, unconsciously, one of the best early bits of her woman-work
in the world.

Once in a while it occurred to Leslie Goldthwaite to wonder why it was
that she was able to forget--that she found she had forgotten, in a
measure--those little self-absorptions that she had been afraid of, and
that had puzzled her in her thoughtful moments. She was glad to be
"taken up" with something that could please Dakie Thayne; or to go over
to the Cliff and see Prissy Hoskins, and tell her a story; or help Dakie
to fence in safely her beds of flower-seedlings (she had not let her
first visit be her last, in these weeks since her introduction there),
or to sit an hour with dear old Miss Craydocke and help her in a bit of
charity work, and hear her sweet, simple, genial talk. She had taken up
her little opportunities as they came. Was it by instinct only, or
through