Louise, just at this stage, turned her attention to her own cup. There was one lonesome ground drifting aimlessly and forlornly round and round in obedience to the impetus of a current set in motion by the recent stirring. She had poured her own cup last, which explained its being so much clearer than his. "Oh, look here, Les!" she exclaimed, following the solitary coffee ground in the air with the tip of her spoon. "There's just one. That means a visitor, doesn't it?" She coloured a little, and lifted the oracle up gently. Leslie shrugged, conspicuously bored, and devoted himself moodily to what remained of his share of the eggs. "I don't know," he said. But she couldn't be swayed from her zeal. She was determined to be agreeable—especially when it was possible to come upon such agreeable speculations as this. "There's something about finding money on top of your coffee," she embroidered, "though you can always make some come if you hold the pot high enough as you pour. But you see you can't make a visitor unless there is one." And Leslie heroically refrained from suggesting that even visitors might be warded off if one didn't forget the dash of cold water. However, he did remind her that there needed no signs to tell her there was a visitor on the way. And he added, with rather juvenile petulance: "I guess he'd come if there weren't any grounds in the pot!" [Pg 35] [Pg 35] But this riled her. "I don't mean to sit here and listen to you speaking disrespectfully of Mr. Barry! He's much older, and you can't treat him as you would one of the boys." "I don't want to," her friend returned, vaguely, yet still somehow pointedly. She smiled, erasing the friction from their talk. "In the case of the coffee grounds, as I understand it, if it seems soft it's a lady, and if it's hard it's a man. Am I all wrong? Is it tea leaves I'm thinking of? At any rate, we'll experiment!" She eyed her companion with coy and almost vicious pleasure. "Perhaps this one's only Aunt Marjie, who's already here." She carried the problematical atom to her teeth. The test, which she strove to make momentous, was one to which Leslie brought only a melancholy interest. She set her teeth firmly together. There was a little brittle crack. The indisputable fact that it was Lynndal Barry thrust
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