"Am I not grown tall?" she asked, mischievously shaking her curls.

"No," said I, looking down to her feet cased in those high slippers
French ladies then wore, "'tis your heels!"

And we all laughed. Catching sight of the squirrel, Hortense snatched
it up with caresses against her neck, and the French governess
sputtered out something of which I knew only the word "beau."

"Jack is no beau, mademoiselle," said I loftily. "Pah! He's a wharf
lad."

I had thought Hortense would die in fits.

"Mademoiselle means the squirrel, Ramsay," she said, choking, her
handkerchief to her lips. "Tell Jack thanks, with my love," she
called, floating back up the stairs.

And the governess set to laughing in the pleasant French way that
shakes all over and has no spite. Emboldened, I asked why Hortense
could not play with us any more. Hortense, she explained, was become
too big to prank on the commons.

"Faith, mademoiselle," said I ruefully, "an she mayn't play war on the
commons, what may she play?"

"Beau!" teases mademoiselle, perking her lips saucily; and she shut the
door in my face.

It seemed a silly answer enough, but it put a notion in a lad's head.