“You couldn’t. You’re a girl.”
It was a matter-of-fact statement with no suspicion of a taunt in it, but it stung Georgina’s pride. Her eyes blazed defiantly and she tossed back her curls with a proud little uplift of the chin. It must be acknowledged that her nose, too, took on the trifle of a tilt. Her challenge was unspoken but so evident that he answered it.
“Well, you know you couldn’t creep out into the night and go along a lonely shore into dark caves and everything.”
“_Pity_ I couldn’t!” she answered with withering scorn. “I could go anywhere _you_ could, anybody descended from heroes like _I_ am. I don’t want to be braggity, but I’d have you to know they put up that big monument over there for one of them, and another was a Minute-man. With all that, for you to think I’d be afraid! _Tut!_”
Not Tippy herself had ever spoken that word with finer scorn. With a flirt of her short skirts Georgina turned and started disdainfully up the street.
“Wait,” called Richard. He liked the sudden flare-up of her manner. There was something convincing about it. Besides, he didn’t want her to go off in that independent way as if she meant never to come back. It was she who had brought the Towncrier, that matchless Teller of Tales, across his path.
She hesitated, then stopped, turning half-way around.
“I just said you was a girl. Most of them _are_ ’fraid cats, but if you ain’t I don’t know as I’d mind taking you along. That is,” he added cautiously, “if I could be dead sure that you’re game.”
At that Georgina turned all the way around and came back a few steps.