“But, Bertha, some of the fellows’ mothers do.”
“Remember your mother is Percy’s mother, too.”
“Pickering’s mother doesn’t look much older than you,” he replied.
“Oh—what a horrid woman!”
He smiled. “Why do you call her a horrid woman? For not looking older than you?”
“Oh! tell her to mind her own business, and not go interfering with me. I shall look whatever age I choose without consulting her!” Bertha pretended to pout and be offended, and went on reading for a little while.
He took another chocolate and turned a page.
She did not ask to see the book.
“That’s what I call so jolly about you,” presently said Clifford. “When I come to see you, you don’t keep asking me questions, or giving me things, or advice, or anything. You do what you like, and I do what I like—I mean to say, we both do just what we like.”
“Yes; that’s the way to be pleasant companions,” said Bertha. “I go your way, and you go mine.”