I decided this: that Leila was my sister and therfore bound to me by
ties of Blood and Relationship. She must not be married to anyone,
therfore, whom she did not love or at least respect. I would not doom
her to be unhappy.
Now I have a qualaty which is well known at school, and frequently used
to obtain holadays and so on. It may be Magnatism, it may be Will. I
have a very strong Will, having as a child had a way of lying on the
floor and kicking my feet if thwarted. In school, by fixing my eyes
ridgidly on the teacher, I have been able to make her do as I wish, such
as not calling on me when unprepared, et cetera.
Full well I know the danger of such a Power, unless used for good.
I now made up my mind to use this Will, or Magnatism, on Leila, she
being unsuspicious at the time and thinking that the thought of Marriage
was her own, and no one else's.
Being still awake when the Familey came upstairs, I went into her room
and experamented while she was taking down her hair.
"Well?" she said at last. "You needn't stare like that. I can't do my
hair this way without a Swich."
"I was merely thinking," I said in a lofty tone.
"Then go and think in bed."
"Does it or does it not concern you as to what I was thinking?" I
demanded.
"It doesn't greatly concern me," she replied, wraping her hair around a
kid curler, "but I darsay I know what it was. It's written all over
you in letters a foot high. You'd like me to get married and out of the
way.
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