"I like her. No, I shouldn't like any one else coming in. Perhaps she would not stay. No, Uncle Jason, I don't want you to marry any one," she said, simply. "And when I get old I shall not marry, though Carmen means to. And we will live together always. Oh," with a bright little laugh, "let's promise. Put your little finger—so." She hooked hers in it. "Now, you must say: Honest and true, I love but you!"
He uttered it solemnly. He had said it to one other little girl when he was a big boy.
Then she repeated it, looking out of clear, earnest eyes.
After that she gathered a great armful of flowers and they rambled off home.
"Who do you think has been here?" inquired Miss Holmes, with a laugh in her very voice.
"Who—Olive, perhaps. Or, maybe, Dick Folsom."
"No. Guess again."
She cudgelled her wits. "Not Snippy?"
"Yes, Snippy. He actually came into the house and looked so sharply at me that I told him you would be home about noon. Then I gave him a bit of cracker, and when he had eaten a little he scampered off with the rest. I think he has been planning a house near us."
"Oh, wouldn't that be splendid! I'm just going to scatter a path of cracker bits as Hop o' my Thumb did."