"If," said Lily, distinctly, "you are afraid to go
home, if you think your aunt will tell, I will let you
get into Aunt Laura's baby-carriage again, and I
will wheel you a little way."

Johnny would have liked at that moment to knock
Lily down, as he had his aunt Janet. Lily looked
at him shrewdly. "Oh yes," said she, "you can
knock me down in the dust there if you want to,
and spoil my nice clean dress. You will be a boy,
just the same."

"I will never marry you, anyway," declared
Johnny.

"Aren't you afraid I'll tell on you and get you
another spanking if you don't?"

"Tell if you want to. I'd enough sight rather be
spanked than marry you."

A gleam of respect came into the little girl's
wisely regarding blue eyes. She, with the swiftness
of her sex, recognized in forlorn little Johnny the
making of a man. "Oh, well," said she, loftily,
"I never was a telltale, and, anyway, we are not
grown up, and there will be my trousseau to get,
and a lot of other things to do first. I shall go to
Europe before I am married, too, and I might meet
a boy much nicer than you on the steamer."