“Grizel!” he cried in agony.  He was so carried away by his feelings that he said the word aloud.

“Where?” asked Elspeth, looking at the window.

“Was it not she who passed just now?” he replied promptly; and they were still discussing his mistake when Grizel did pass, but only to stop at the door.  She came in.

“My brother must have the second sight,” declared Elspeth, gaily, “for he saw you coming before you came”; and she told what had happened, while Grizel looked happily at Tommy, and Tommy looked apprehensively at her.  Grizel, he might have seen, was not wearing the tragic face of sacrifice; it was a face shining with gladness, a girl still too happy in his nobility to think remorsefully of her own misdeeds.  To let him know that she was proud of him, that was what she had come for chiefly, and she was even glad that Elspeth was there to hear.  It was an excuse to her to repeat Corp’s story, and she told it with defiant looks at Tommy that said, “You are so modest, you want to stop me, but Elspeth will listen; it is nearly as sweet to Elspeth as it is to me, and I shall tell her every word, yes, and tell her a great deal of it twice.”

It was not modesty which made Tommy so anxious that she should think less of him, but naturally it had that appearance.  The most heroic fellows, I am told, can endure being extolled by pretty girls, but here seemed to be one who could not stand it.

“You need not think it is of you we are proud,” she assured him light-heartedly; “it is really of ourselves.  I am proud of being your friend.  To-morrow, when I hear the town ringing your praises, I shall not say, ‘Yes, isn’t he wonderful?’ I shall say, ’Talk of me; I, too, am an object of interest, for I am his friend.’”

“I have often been pointed out as his sister,” said Elspeth, complacently.

“He did not choose his sister,” replied Grizel, “but he chose his friends.”

For a time he could suck no sweetness from it.  She avoided the glove, he was sure, only because of Elspeth’s presence.  But anon there arrived to cheer him a fond hope that she had not heard of it, and as this became conviction, exit the Tommy who could not abide himself, and enter another who was highly charmed therewith.  Tommy had a notion that certain whimsical little gods protected him in return for the sport he gave them, and he often kissed his hand to them when they came to the rescue.  He would have liked to kiss it now, but gave a grateful glance instead to the corner in the ceiling where they sat chuckling at him.  Grizel admired him at last.  Tra, la, la!  What a dear girl she was!  Into his manner there crept a certain masterfulness, and instead of resisting it she beamed.  Rum-ti-tum!

“If you want to spoil me,” he said lazily, “you will bring me that footstool to rest my heroic feet upon.”  She smiled and brought it.  She even brought a cushion for his heroic head.  Adoring little thing that she was, he must be good to her.