THE HONOR GIRL by Grace Livingston Hill Page B

for her coming, and, flinging their arms about her, lifted their sister from her feet, and held her so between them for a moment, with a look almost of adoration on their faces.
    The girl’s heart leaped up unexpectedly, and she felt a great wave of love for them sweep over her. After all, they were her own brothers; and how strong and splendid they seemed, lifting her in this way as if she were a feather! She put an arm around each, and kissed first one and then the other, half laughing, half ashamed at the surge of emotion within her.
    “Say, kid, this is great!” burst forth Jack. “We couldn’t make out who was the fairy; so we thought we’d steal a march on her, whoever she was.”
    They had put her upon her feet, but stood each side of her, looking down from their young height with pride and tenderness, as if they could hardly believe they had her, as if it were too good to be true.
    “It was wonderful!” said Gene. “But we didn’t think it was you. We didn’t suppose you could cook like that—that is, we didn’t suppose you had time for such things. We—” He stopped, realizing that he was showing her just what kind of an opinion he had had of her.
    But she nestled her head against his shoulder lovingly. “You thought I was a feather-brained, giddy little girl who couldn’t do a single sensible thing; and you thought, anyhow, that I didn’t care a cent for you. I begin to see that you had good reason to think so, too. But I never understood; really I didn’t! I didn’t realize that you needed me—at least, you needed someone.”
    “That’s it, we needed,” said Gene drawing his arm closer around her, and taking her little floury hand in his.
    “Here! Let me in on this!” cried Jack, throwing his big arms around the two of them and almost smothering his sister.
    Thus in a merry scrimmage the moment of their meeting was tided over, and suddenly the kettle of fat on the stove asserted itself.
    “Oh, my doughnuts!” screamed Elsie, rushing back to see the three fat floaters already turning very dark indeed.
    “Doughnuts!” said Jack. “That’s what we smelled! Gee! This is great! Can I have one now?”
    “Take all you want!” said Elsie grandly, her heart rejoicing in the ability to give.
    They ate doughnuts, and helped her to make more; and, while it all was going on they were stealing shy looks at one another, seeing in this intimate hour for the first time in years a vision of what each was and what they might be to one another.
    The brothers were recognizing something fine and beautiful in Elsie, a culture far above their own, that told in every little word and glance. They were swelling with pride in her, and at the same time shrinking inwardly at their own short-comings. They rejoiced that she had not been too proud to come to them and cook for them, and they rejoiced most of all that she was beautiful and above them.
    “Gee! This is great!” sighed Jack as he reached for his seventh doughnut. “Wouldn’t it be simply ripping if you lived here all the time?”
    “Not for Elsie,” said Gene shortly with sudden gloom getting up and going over to the kitchen window, where he stood looking out with his back turned so that his sister could not see his face. His back, however, was eloquent. Elsie remembered it for many a night as she lay trying to think out her life and plan what to do.
    At present, however, she only answered quietly: “I’m not so sure about that, Gene. I think it would be rather nice.”
    She hadn’t intended saying it at all. She did not know until that moment that she had arrived in her thoughts even so far as that; but, having said it, she felt content to let it go, and was thrilled with the instant flash of joy in her brothers’ eyes as they both wheeled and stared at her.
    “My! Kid! You don’t know how we’d like that!” said Gene. “If you ever got where you could consider that, we’d do anything we knew how to show you a good time. This house has