“You are never naughty. You are a good, GOOD, GOOD Kitsy,” panted Johnnie with emphasis.
“I am not good to you. I tease you so often, and I am greedy. I take the largest half of things—when you—you—ought to have them all,” cried Kitty, too shaken by repentant sobs to particularize the speech. “I let you fall one day last summer.”
“Good Kitsy, good old Kitsy all the same,” insisted Johnnie, thumping the coverlid with his tiny fist.
Still Kitty’s sobs did not subside: they grew bitterer and bitterer. Then came the confession:
“I made you ill, Johnnie. I took you—out—in the snow.”
“I made you take me,” said Johnnie sturdily.
“Mother had said I was not to take you out in the sn—now,” went on Kitty, shaking with sobs. “You did not know she had said so. Oh, Johnnie, forgive me! Say you forgive me!”
“I made you take me out,” repeated Johnnie. Then, as Kitty’s sobs continued, he put his wee hand on her head, and said in a voice weak as the pipe of a wounded bird, “Don’t cry, Kitsy. I forgive you!”
There was a silence. Then Kitty dried her tears.
“I wonder what makes me so naughty!” she said.