She crept in noiselessly as a shadow. Her warm arms went about my neck, drawing my face down to hers. “Oh, Dannie, I’m so, so sorry,” she whispered. “What about?” “Because I’ve never missed welcoming you home ever since you went to school, and you needed me most of all this evening--and because you’ve got to go to work.” “That doesn’t matter, Ruthie. If I go to work I’ll earn money, and then I’ll be able to do things for you.” “For me! Oh, you darling!” Then she thought a minute and her face clouded. “But no, if you go to work you’ll marry. That’s what always happens.” She stood gazing up at me, her face looking frailer and purer than ever in the darkness. She had slipped on a long blue dressing-gown to come and see me, and her long black hair hung loose about her. Just below the edge of her gown her small pale feet showed out. Then I realized for the first time that she had changed as I had changed; we were no longer children. Perhaps the same wistful imaginings, exquisite and alluring, had come to her. For her also the walls of childhood, which had shut out the far horizon, were crumbling. Then, with an overwhelming reverence, I became aware of the strange fascination of her appealing beauty. She snuggled herself beside me in the window. We spoke beneath our breath in the hushed voices of conspirators, lest we should be heard by my father. “I couldn’t sleep,” she said apologetically. “I was lonely, so I came to you. Everything and everybody seem so sad.” “It was your thoughts that were sad, Ruthie. What were you thinking about?” She rubbed her cheek against mine shyly and I felt her tremble. “I was thinking about you. We’re growing up, Dante. You may go away and forget--forget all about me and the Snow Lady.” “I shan’t,” I denied stoutly. To which she replied, “But people do.” “Do what?” “Forget. And then I’m not your sister really--only by pretense.” “Look here,” I said, “you say that when boys earn money they marry. I don’t think I ever shall because--well, because of something that has happened. So why shouldn’t you and I agree to live always together, the same as we do now?” She said that that would be grand; she would be a little mother to me. But she wanted to know what made me so sure that I would always be a bachelor. With the sincere absurdity of youth, the more absurd because of its sincerity, I confided my passion for Fiesole. “After what she has done,” I said, “I could never marry her; and yet I love her too well ever to marry anybody else. I can only love golden hair now, and the golden hair of another girl would always remind me of Fiesole.” Ruthita was silent. Then I remembered that her hair was black and saw that I had been clumsy in my sentiment, so I added, “But, Ruthie, in a sister I think black hair is the prettiest color in the world.” After she had tiptoed away to her room and I had crept into bed, I lay awake thinking over her words--that she was only my sister by pretense.