Page:Henry B. Fuller - Bertram Cope's Year, 1919.djvu/155

 Phillips gave a slight smile and said quickly:

"For heaven's sake, Amy, don't look so concerned, and mournful, and sympathetic! Anybody might think that, instead of your being my chaperon, I was yours!"

"He doesn't look at all well," said Amy defensively.

"He might look better; but we can't pity a young man too openly. Pity is akin to embarrassment, for the pitied."

Cope came down stairs the second time at a lesser pace. He carried a sheaf of photographs. Some were large and were regularly mounted; others were but the informal products of snapshottery.

He drew up his chair nearer to theirs' and began to spread his pictures over the gray and brown pattern on his lap.

"You know I was teaching, last year, at Winnebago," he said. "Here are some pictures of the place. Science Hall," he began, passing them. "Those fellows on the front steps must be a graduating class.

"The Cathedral," he continued. "And I think that, somewhere or other, I have a group-picture of the choir.

"Sisterhood house," he went on. "Two or three of them standing out in front."

"Sisterhood?" asked Mrs. Phillips, with interest. "What do they do?"

Cope paused. "What do they do, indeed? Well,

for one thing, they decorate the altar—Easter, Harvest home, and so on."