“Gabrielle.” He spoke the name in a soft tender tone with such a sweet reverence that she lowered her gaze and sighed.
“So I was a horrid boy, was I?” he asked lightly, breaking the pause. She looked up then all smiles.
“Don’t you remember? But of course you didn’t think so yourself, and I daresay thought me a little spitfire. You used to pinch me slyly and kick me, and laugh when you hurt me. I wonder I have not the bruises to this day. And have you forgotten that time I flew at you and boxed your ears?”
“I wonder I can have forgotten,” he laughed.
“Yes, you had snared a blackbird and were pulling out its feathers, and mad at the sight I rushed at you and struck you, and you let it go in your surprise. I hated you for that, Gerard, I did indeed.”
“Serve me right, too.”
“And you called me such names.”
“Not Gabrielle?” he interposed.
“No, and not mademoiselle,” she retorted laughing. “But cat, and beast, and fury, and everything, and you pulled my hair.”
“That hair?” he asked, laughing again. “What sacrilege.”