'I'd take anything for you, Heriot,' said I.

'All right,' he answered, never meaning me to suffer on his account. He
had an inimitable manner of sweet speaking that endeared him to younger
boys capable of appreciating it, with the supernatural power of music.
It endeared him, I suppose, to young women also. Julia repeated his
phrases, as for instance, 'Silly boy, silly boy,' spoken with a wave of
his hand, when a little fellow thanked him for a kindness. She was angry
at his approval of what she called my defiance of her father, and
insisted that I was the catspaw of one of Heriot's plots to vex him.
'Tell Heriot you have my command to say you belong to me and must not be
misled,' she said. His answer was that he wanted it in writing. She
requested him to deliver up her previous letters. Thereupon he charged
me with a lengthy epistle, which plunged us into boiling water. Mr.
Boddy sat in the schoolroom while Heriot's pen was at work, on the wet
Sunday afternoon. His keen little eyes were busy in his flat bird's head
all the time Heriot continued writing. He saw no more than that Heriot
gave me a book; but as I was marching away to Julia he called to know
where I was going.

'To Miss Rippenger,' I replied.

'What have you there?'

'A book, sir.'

'Show me the book.'

I stood fast.