According to his usual quiet, self-contained fashion, Lis had looked on for a time, until he felt fairly certain of the correctness of his observations, and had then made an opportunity to have a talk with Erica alone. He had suggested a walk across the commons to the South shore—their favorite tramp that led through the stretch of stunted pine woods Erica had long ago christened the Owls’ Country. It was a wonderful spring morning, the wind fresh and bracing from the north, the air crisp with sea salt and that indescribable early-spring smell of wakening green things, and sweet, sun-warmed earth. The cousins had talked of every-day matters on the walk to the shore, but when they emerged on the wide, yellow stretch of beach that rose into dunes on one hand and sloped down to green, white-topped breakers on the other, Lis fell silent. He stood still, staring out to sea rather wistfully for a moment—as if, Erica thought, he were remembering his brief clipper voyagings. Then, swinging about, he asked his question regarding Milly Thorne abruptly. The suddenness of it took Erica by surprise, and the unwonted impatience of his tone astonished her even more. It sounded a little—incredible notion—as if Lis were actually put out about something; as if it mattered to him whether Erica and Milly got on well together, or didn’t. Erica’s own temper, never too securely in leash, slipped into view in a quick little flash of indignation peeping out of her blue eyes. Her red head lifted a half inch or so, and her chin took on the squarer, stubborn look that presaged an argument. “I don’t know what you mean,” she retorted. “If you’ve noticed that we’re not bosom friends, well—that’s perfectly true. But I don’t see why you should call it nonsense. We’ll never be awfully fond of each other, I guess. We’re—we’re too different. Milly’s so bored and uninterested in things all the time, I lose my patience with her entirely. I—I just can’t understand her a bit.” “Do you try to?” Lis asked, bluntly. Erica bit her lip to keep back the sharp words that rushed to her tongue’s tip. She loved her cousin dearly, and up to a very few days ago she had feared never to see him again, so she was resolved not to let herself be angry with him now, no matter how unreasonable he might choose to be. Still, it was a shock—and a highly unpleasant one—to find Lis undertaking to champion Milly, who had brought all her present unpopularity on her own head, as Tommy, or any of their special little group of boys and girls, could have told him. “I did try, Lis,” she said, after those two or three seconds of struggle with herself. “So did Tommy. When Milly first came last winter, I mean. But she showed us all pretty plainly that she didn’t care for our company, or our fun or our friends. At school she doesn’t make friends, either—only with teacher. It’s a pity I know, but—you can’t keep on forcing yourself on somebody; you’ll have to admit that.”