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Annie stared.

“You are letting that omelet burn,” said Benny. “Say, Annie, I will go out and turn that hay in the morning. I know I don’t amount to much, but I ain’t a girl, anyhow, and I haven’t got a cross-eyed soul. That’s what ails a lot of girls. They mean all right, but their souls have been cross-eyed ever since they came into the world, and it’s just such girls as you who ought to get them straightened out. You know what has happened to-day. Well, here’s what happened yesterday. I don’t tell tales, but you ought to know this, for I believe Tom Reed has his eye on you, in spite of Imogen’s being such a beauty, and Susan’s having manners like silk, and Eliza’s giving everybody the impression that she is too good for this earth, and Jane’s trying to make everybody think she is a sweet martyr, without a thought for mortal man, when that is only her way of trying to catch one. You know Tom Reed was here last evening?”

Annie nodded. Her face turned scarlet, then pathetically pale. She bent over her omelet, carefully lifting it around the edges.

“Well,” Benny went on, “I know he came to see you, and Imogen went to the door and ushered him into the parlor, and I was out on the piazza, and she didn’t know it, but I heard her tell him that she thought you had gone out. She hinted, too, that George Wells had taken you to the concert in the town hall. He did ask you, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Imogen spoke in this way.” Benny lowered his voice and imitated Imogen to the life. “‘Yes, we are all well, thank you. Father is busy, of course; Jane has run over to Mrs. Jacobs’s for a pattern; Eliza is writing letters; and Susan is somewhere about the house. Annie — well, Annie — George Wells asked her to go to the concert — I rather –‘ Then,” said Benny, in his natural voice, “Imogen stopped, and she could say truthfully that she didn’t lie, but anybody would have thought from what she said that you had gone to the concert with George Wells.”

“Did Tom inquire for me?” asked Annie, in a low voice.

“Didn’t have a chance. Imogen got ahead of him.”

“Oh, well, then it doesn’t matter. I dare say he did come to see Imogen.”

“He didn’t,” said Benny, stoutly. “And that isn’t all. Say, Annie –“

“What?”

“Are you going to marry George Wells? It is none of my business, but are you?”

Annie laughed a little, although her face was still pale. She had folded the omelet and was carefully watching it.

“You need not worry about that, Benny dear,” she said.

“Then what right have the girls to tell so many people the nice things they hear you say about him?”

Annie removed the omelet skilfully from the pan to a hot plate, which she set on the range shelf, and turned to her brother.

“What nice things do they hear me say?”

“That he is so handsome; that he has such a good position; that he is the very best young man in the place; that you should think every girl would be head over heels in love with him; that every word he speaks is so bright and clever.”

Annie looked at her brother.

“I don’t believe you ever said one of those things,” remarked Benny.

Annie continued to look at him.

“Did you?”

“Benny dear, I am not going to tell you.”

“You won’t say you never did, because that would be putting your sisters in the wrong and admitting that they tell lies. Annie, you are a dear, but I do think you are doing wrong and spoiling them as much as they say you are spoiling me.”

“Perhaps I am,” said Annie. There was a strange, tragic expression on her keen, pretty little face. She looked as if her mind was contemplating strenuous action which was changing her very features. She had covered the finished omelet and was now cooking another.