m and confident, assuming her air of gracious patronage,
irritated her beyond endurance. Zora's smile deepened into indulgent
laughter.

"My dearest Emmy, you don't mean to say that it's jealousy of me? But it's
too ridiculous. Do you suppose I've ever thought of Septimus in that way?"

"You've thought of him just as you used to think of the bob-tailed sheep
dog we had when we were children."

"Well, dear, you were never jealous of my attachment to Bobbie or Bobbie's
devotion to me," said Zora, smilingly logical. "Come, dear, I knew there
was only some silly nonsense at the bottom of this. Look. I'll resign every
right I have in poor Septimus."

Emmy rose. "If you call him 'poor Septimus' and speak of him in that tone,
you'll drive me mad. It's you that are wicked and heartless and selfish."

"I?" cried Zora, aghast.

"Yes, you. You accept the love and adoration of the noblest gentleman that
God ever put into the world, and you treat him and talk of him as if he
were a creature of no account. If you were worthy of being loved by him, I
shouldn't he jealous. But you're not. You've been so wrapped up in your own
magnificence that you've not even condescended to notice that he loved you.
And even now, when I tell you, you laugh, as if it were preposterous that
'poor Septimus' could ever dare to love you. You drive me mad."

Zora drew herself up angrily. To make allowances for a silly girl's
jealousy was one thing; it was another to be accused in this vehement
fashion. Conscious of her innocence, she said:

"Your attack on me is entirely unjustifiable, Emmy. I have done nothing."

"That's why," retorted Emmy quickly. "You've done nothing. Men are
sacrificing their lives and fortunes for you, and you do nothing."

"Lives and fortunes? What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say," cried Emmy desperately. "Septimus has done everything
short of laying down his life for you, and that he would have done if
necessary, and you haven't even taken the trouble to see the soul in the
man that was capable of it. And now that something has happened which you
can't help seeing you come in your grand way to put it all to rights in a
minute. You think I've turned him out because he's a good-natured worry
like Bobbie, the bob-tailed sheep dog, and you say, 'Poor fellow, see how
pitifully he's wagging his tail. It's cruel of you not to let him in.'
That's the way you look at Septimus, and I can't stand it and I won't. I
love him as I ne