is going to be a lady? I should not wonder if she liked it," said Mr.
Phipps.

"As if ladies were not tomboys too!" said she with wise scorn, half
laughing, half pouting. Then with wistfulness: "Will it be so very
different? Why should it? I hate the idea of going away from
Beechhurst!" and she laid her cheek against the doctor's rough whisker
with the caressing, confiding affection that made her so inexpressibly
dear to him.

"Here is my big baby," said he. "A little more, and she will persuade me
to say I won't part with her."

Bessie flashed out impetuously: "Do say so! do say so! If you won't part
with me, I won't go. Who can make us?"

Mrs. Carnegie came into the room, serious and reasonable. She had caught
Bessie's last words, and said: "If we were to let you have your own way
now, Bessie dear, ten to one that you would live to reproach us with not
having done our duty by you. My conscience is clear that we ought to
give you up. What is your opinion, Mr. Phipps?"

"My opinion is, Mrs. Carnegie, that when the pumpkin-coach calls for
Cinderella, she will jump in, kiss her hand to all friends in the
Forest, and drive off to Woldshire in a delicious commotion of tearful
joy and impossible expectation."

Bessie cried out vehemently against this.

"There, there!" said the doctor, as if he were tired, "that is enough.