Page:Across the Zodiac (Volume 2).djvu/95

 "You professed," I said, "to take especial pleasure in a walk with me, and this time I will be careful that you are not overtired."

"Of course I should like it," she answered; "but it would not be just. Please let me this time remain to take my part of the household duties, and make myself acquainted with the house. Choose your companion among the others, whom you have scarcely noticed yet."

Preferring not only Eveena's company, but even my own, to that of any of the six, and feeling myself not a little dependent on her guidance and explanations, I remonstrated. But finding that her sense of justice and kindness would yield to nothing short of direct command, I gave way.

"You forget my pleasure," I said at last. "But if you will not go, you must at least tell me which I am to take. I will not pretend to have a choice in the matter."

"Well, then," she answered, "I should be glad to see you take Eunane. She is, I think, the eldest, apparently the most intelligent and companionable, and she has had one mortification already she hardly deserved."

"And is much the prettiest," I added maliciously. But Eveena was incapable of even understanding so direct an appeal to feminine jealousy.

"I think so," she said; "much the prettiest among us. But that will make no difference under her veil."

"And must she keep down her veil," I asked, "in our own grounds?"

Eveena laughed. "Wherever she might be seen by any man but yourself."