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“Dear Annie may not be singular, but her actions are sometimes singular,” said Susan. “We all feel badly about this.”

“You mean her going over to her grandmother’s house to live? I don’t know whether I think that is anything but horse-sense. I have eyes in my head, and I have used them. Annie has worked like a dog here; I suppose she needed a rest.”

“We all do our share of the work,” said Eliza, calmly, “but we do it in a different way from dear Annie. She makes very hard work of work. She has not as much system as we could wish. She tires herself unnecessarily.”

“Yes, that is quite true,” assented Imogen. “Dear Annie gets very tired over the slightest tasks, whereas if she went a little more slowly and used more system the work would be accomplished well and with no fatigue. There are five of us to do the work here, and the house is very convenient.”

There was a silence. Tom Reed was bewildered. “But — doesn’t she want to see me?” he asked, finally.

“Dear Annie takes very singular notions sometimes,” said Eliza, softly.

“If she took a notion not to go to the door when she heard the bell ring, she simply wouldn’t,” said Imogen, whose bluntness of speech was, after all, a relief.

“Then you mean that you think she took a notion not to go to the door?” asked Tom, in a desperate tone.

“Dear Annie is very singular,” said Eliza, with such softness and deliberation that it was like a minor chord of music.

“Do you know of anything she has against me?” asked Tom of Imogen; but Eliza answered for her.

“Dear Annie is not in the habit of making confidantes of her sisters,” said she, “but we do know that she sometimes takes unwarranted dislikes.”

“Which time generally cures,” said Susan.

“Oh yes,” assented Eliza, “which time generally cures. She can have no reason whatever for avoiding you. You have always treated her well.”

“I have always meant to,” said Tom, so miserably and helplessly that Annie, listening, felt her heart go out to this young man, badgered by females, and she formed a sudden resolution.

“You have not seen very much of her, anyway,” said Imogen.

“I have always asked for her, but I understood she was busy,” said Tom, “and that was the reason why I saw her so seldom.”

“Oh,” said Eliza, “busy!” She said it with an indescribable tone.

“If,” supplemented Imogen, “there was system, there would be no need of any one of us being too busy to see our friends.”

“Then she has not been busy? She has not wanted to see me?” said Tom. “I think I understand at last. I have been a fool not to before. You girls have broken it to me as well as you could. Much obliged, I am sure. Good night.”

“Won’t you come in?” asked Imogen.

“We might have some music,” said Eliza.

“And there is an orange cake, and I will make coffee,” said Susan.

Annie reflected rapidly how she herself had made that orange cake, and what queer coffee Susan would be apt to concoct.

“No, thank you,” said Tom Reed, briskly. “I will drop in another evening. Think I must go home now. I have some important letters. Good night, all.”

Annie made a soft rush to the gate, crouching low that her sisters might not see her. They flocked into the house with irascible murmurings, like scolding birds, while Annie stole across the grass, which had begun to glisten with silver wheels of dew. She held her skirts closely wrapped around her, and stepped through a gap in the shrubs beside the walk, then sped swiftly to the gate. She reached it just as Tom Reed was passing with a quick stride.

“Tom,” said Annie, and the young man stopped short.

He looked in her direction, but she stood close to a great snowball-bush, and her dress was green muslin, and he did not see her. Thinking that he had been mistaken, he started on, when she called again, and this time she stepped apart from the bush and her voice sounded clear as a flute.