invitation of Mr. Wilks.

"Why don't you come oftener, Jim?" the latter asked him one day. "Aggie
was saying, only yesterday, that you used to be such friends with her,
and now you hardly ever come near her. The squire is as pleased as I am
to see you."

"I don't know," Jim replied. "You see, I am always comfortable with
you. I can chat with you, and tell you about school, and about fishing,
and so on. The squire is very kind, but I know it is only because of
that picking Aggie out of the water, and I never seem to know what to
talk about with him. And then, you see, Aggie is growing a young lady,
and can't go rambling about at my heels as she used to do, when she was
a little girl. I like her, you know, Mr. Wilks, just as I used to do;
but I can't carry her on my shoulder now, and make a playfellow of
her."

"I suppose that's all natural enough, Jim," Aggie's grandfather said;
"but I do think it is a pity you don't come up more often. You know we
are all fond of you, and it will give us a pleasure to have you here."

Jim was, in fact, getting to the awkward age with boys. When younger,
they tyrannize over their little sisters, when older they may again
take pleasure in girls' society; but there is an age, in every boy's
life, when he is inclined to think girls a nuisance, as creatures
incapable of joining in games, and as being apt to get in the way.

Still, Jim was very fond of his former playmate, and had she been still
living down in Sidmouth with his mother, they would have been as great
friends as ever.