“You don’t deserve it,” said Percival.  “Here is my aunt saying that the hot weather makes you scandalously idle.”

“Scandalously idle!  Aunt Harriet!” Sissy repeated it in incredulous amusement, and the old lady’s indignant disclaimer was heard:  “Percival!  Most unusually idle, I said.”

“Oh! most unusually idle?  I beg your pardon.  But doesn’t that imply a considerable amount of idleness to be got through by one person?”

“Yes, but you helped me,” said Sissy.—­“Aunt Harriet, listen.  He stood on my thimble ever so long while he was talking this afternoon.  How can I work without a thimble?”

“Impossible!” said Percival.  “And I don’t think I can get you another to-morrow:  I am going out.  On Thursday I shall come back and bring you one that won’t fit.  Friday you must go with me to change it.  Yes, we shall manage three days’ holiday very nicely.”

“Nonsense!  But it is your fault if I am idle.”

“Why, yes.  Having no thimble, you are naturally unable to finish your book, for instance.”

“Oh, I sha’n’t finish that:  I don’t like it.  The heroine is so dreadfully strong-minded I don’t believe in her.  She never does anything wrong; and though she suffers tortures—­absolute agony, you know—­she always rises to the occasion—­nasty thing!”

“A wonderful woman,” said Percival, idly picking sprays of jasmine as he spoke.

Sissy’s voice sank lower:  “Do you think there are really any women like that?”

“Oh yes, I suppose so.”

She took the flowers which he held out, and looked doubtfully into his face:  “But—­do you like them, Percival?”

“Make the question a little clearer,” he said.  “I don’t like your ranting, pushing, unwomanly women who can talk of nothing but their rights.  They are very terrible.  But heroic women—­” He stopped short.  The pause was more eloquent than speech.

“Ah!” said Sissy, “Well—­a woman like Jael? or Judith?”

He repeated the name “Judith.”  “Or Charlotte Corday?” he suggested after a moment.

It was Sissy’s turn to hesitate, and she compressed her pretty lips doubtfully.  Being in the Old Testament, Jael must of course come out all right, even if one finds it difficult to like her.  Judith’s position, is less clear.  Still, it is a great thing to be in the Apocrypha, and then living so long ago and so far away makes a difference.  But Charlotte Corday—­a young Frenchwoman, not a century dead, who murdered a man, and was guillotined in those horrible revolutionary times,—­would Percival say that was the type of woman he liked?

“Well—­Charlotte Corday, then?”

“Yes, I admire her,” he said slowly.  “Though I would rather the heroism did not show itself in bloodshed.  Still, she was noble:  I honor her.  I dare say the others were too, but I don’t know so much about them.”

“What a poor little thing you must think me!” said Sissy.  “I could never do anything heroic.”