“For action!” she cried; “what are you thinking of doing?”
“This,” he said, and straightway took her into his arms and kissed her as he had kissed her on the night before.
“Oh, if Lucinda has heard or your aunt has seen!” poor Janice cried, extricating herself and setting her cap to rights with a species of fluttered haste that led Jack to wonder suddenly why men didn’t fall in love with maids even oftener than they do. “I do believe that you have gone and done it this time.”
“Nobody heard and nobody saw,” he assured her, but he didn’t at all mean what he said, for his prayers were fervent that his kiss had been public property.
And such was the fact.
Lucinda bounced in on Joshua with a bounce that turned the can of harness polish upside down, for Joshua was oiling the harnesses.
“He kissed her!” she cried in a state of tremendous excitement.
“Well, she’s his aunt, ain’t she?” Joshua demanded, picking up the can and privately wishing Lucinda in Halifax.
“I don’t mean her;—I mean Janice.”
“I don’t see anythin’ surprisin’ in that,” said Joshua,—“not if he got a good chance.”