do anything with them? Other girls draw, and play, and write. I don't do
anything but go in for the excitement that's bad for me. I wish you'd
explain it."

Alan Lynde did not try. The question seemed to turn his thoughts back
upon himself to dispiriting effect. "I've got brains, too, I believe," he
began.

"Lots of them!" cried his sister, generously. "There isn't any of the men
to compare with you. If I had you to talk with all the time, I shouldn't
want jays. I don't mean to flatter. You're a constant feast of reason; I
don't care for flows of soul. You always take right views of things when
you're yourself, and even when you're somebody else you're not stupid.
You could be anything you chose."

"The devil of it is I can't choose," he replied.

"Yes, I suppose that's the devil of it," said the girl.

"You oughtn't to use such language as that, Bess," said her brother,
severely.

"Oh, I don't with everybody," she returned. "Never with ladies!"

He looked at her out of the corner of his eye with a smile at once rueful
and comic.

"You got me, I guess, that time," he owned.

"'Touche',' Mr. Durgin says. He fences, it seems, and he speaks French.