When Blue made her earnest little assertion, she also made an earnest little dab at the air with her brush to emphasise it; and Red, letting her brush linger on her curly mop, replied with equal emphasis and the same earnest, open eyes, “Oh, so do I.”

This decided, there was quiet for a minute, only the soft sound of brushing.  Then Red began that pretty little twittering which bore to their laughter when in full force the same relation that the first faint chit, chit, chit of a bird bears to its full song.

“Weren’t papa and mamma funny when they talked about what we should do if he spoke to us?”

She did not finish her sentence before merriment made it difficult for her to pronounce the words; and as for Blue, she was obliged to throw herself on the side of the bed.

Then again Blue sat up.

“You’re to look down as you pass him, Red—­like this, look!”

“That isn’t right.”  Red said this with a little shriek of delight.  “You’re smiling all over your face—­that won’t do.”

“Because I can’t keep my face straight.  Oh, Red, what shall we do?  I know that if we ever see him after this we shall simply die.”

“Oh, yes”—­with tone of full conviction—­“I know we shall.”

“But we shall meet him.”

They became almost serious for some moments at the thought of the inevitableness of the meeting and the hopelessness of conducting themselves with any propriety.

“And what will he think?” continued Blue, in sympathetic distress; “he will certainly think we are laughing at him, for he will never imagine how much we have been amused.”

Red, however, began to brush her hair again.  “Blue,” said she, “did you ever try to see how you looked in the glass when your eyes were cast down?  You can’t, you know.”

Blue immediately tried, and admitted the difficulty.

“I wish I could,” said Red, “for then I should know how I should look when he had spoken to me and I was passing him.”

“Well, do it, and I’ll tell you.”

“Then you stand there, and I’ll come along past and look down just when I meet you.”

Red made the experiment rather seriously, but Blue cried out: 

“Oh, you looked at me out of the corner of your eye, just as you were looking down—­that’ll never do.”

“I didn’t mean to.  Now look!  I’m doing it again.”  The one white-gowned figure stood with its back to the bed while the other through its little acting down the middle of the room.

“That’s better”—­critically.

“Well,” pursued Red, with interest, “how does it look?”

“Rather nice.  I shouldn’t wonder if he fell in love with you.”

This was a sudden and extraordinary audacity of thought.

“Oh, Blue!”—­in shocked tones—­“How could you think of such a thing!” She reproached her sister as herself.  It was actually the first time such a theme had been broached even in their private converse.