She nodded with two pins in her mouth, then released them as she went on. "Miss Annie made up her mind to lie on a nice bed and have Miss Grace wait on her. And she’s done it. There’s nothing succeeds like success." Mabel nodded her head with the wisdom of centuries. "Oh, Mabs, how can you?" Elma was dreadfully shocked. A vision of poor martyred Miss Annie, with "something internal," being supposed to like what was invariably referred to in that household as "the bed of pain," to have conferred on herself this dreadful thing from choice and wilfulness, this vision was an appalling one. "How can you say such things of Miss Annie? Who would ever go to bed for all these years for the pleasure of the thing?" "I would," said Mabel. "Yes, at the present moment, I would. I should like to have something very pathetic happen to me, so that I should be obliged to lie in bed like Miss Annie, and have somebody nice and sympathetic come in and stroke my hand! Cousin Harry, for instance. He can look so kind and be so comforting when he likes. But, oh! Elma, he was a beast to-day." The truth was out at last. Mabel sat suddenly on the couch beside Elma, and burst into tears. "I think I hate being grown up," she said, "if people treat you in that stiff severe way. Nobody ever did it before--ever." Elma stroked and stroked her hand. "The Leighton lump," as they interpreted the slightly hysterical quality which made each girl cry when the other began, rose in riotous disobedience in her throat, and strangled any further effort at consolation. "Why don’t you say something," wailed Mabel. "I’m trying not to cry too," at last said Elma. Then they both laughed. "I should go right to Cousin Harry and tell him all about it," Elma managed to counsel at last. "I thought you were a beast--but it’s awfully hard on you. It’s awfully hard on all of us--having sisters." "Yes, isn’t it," groaned Mabel. "Harry is very understanding. Almost as understanding as papa is." "Papa! _Do_ you think papa understands?" "Papa understands everything," said Elma. Then a very loyal recollection of the afternoon they had spent in the cheery presence of Mrs. Leighton beset her. "Also mamma, I think she’s a duck," said Elma. CHAPTER IV Cuthbert There was a tremendous scurry after this to allow of the four getting ready in time for dinner. Mabel and Elma regained high spirits after their confidences, and everybody seemed in a better key. Mrs. Leighton came in to inquire of Mabel why Cuthbert had not returned. Cuthbert, by some years the eldest of the family, had attained great brilliance as a medical student, and now worked at pathology in order to qualify as a specialist. His studies kept him intermittently at home, but to-day he had been down early from town and had gone out bicycling with George Maclean. "Cuthbert!" exclaimed Mabel. "Why, I can’t think--why, where’s Cuthbert?"