“It is too bad,” returned Jessie.
“I suppose your mother thinks I am too wicked for you to play with,” remarked Adele after an awkward pause.
“Well,—not exactly,” Jessie wondered how she could explain, “but you see she is afraid we’ll get into some mischief.”
“I know, I know,” returned Adele. “I suppose I am very wicked, but I shall never want to be good if we can’t be friends.”
Jessie pondered for a moment over this speech. It made her feel a great responsibility. She wondered if her mother knew that Adele was in danger of becoming very, very wicked, if it would make any difference in her decision about their friendship. Certainly it was a subject that needed to be discussed, and it should be done that very night when Jessie and her mother had their last little talk before Mrs. Loomis kissed her daughter good-night. For the present it would be best not to talk about it, and so she said, “I’ll tell you what we can do; we can send boats back and forth to each other. You can stay on one end of the log and I will stay on the other.”
“If I come to the middle, will you come and kiss me?” asked Adele.
Jessie thought there could be no harm in doing that upon strictly neutral ground. “But we mustn’t stay there,” she concluded.
“Oh, no, we won’t stay there,” agreed Jessie. So they proceeded to the middle of the log that spanned the brook, fervently kissed one another, and then retreated each to her own side.
“I’ll get some chips,” said Jessie, “and throw some over to you. We ought to have some string, too. Oh, I know where there is some; in the grotto I had a little ball of it the other day, and I put it there to keep it safe.”
“Is the grotto just the same?” asked Adele wistfully. “I should so love to see it. I wish I could come over just for a minute. Do you think I might?”