"Why, what would you do?"
"I would follow him." And she pulled Joshua's head down to hers, and whispered, "I should like to go to sea with you."
"Would you indeed, miss!"
"Yes; for I love you, oh, so much!" whispered the child innocently in the same low tones. "But you wouldn't let me go, would you?"
"I should think not. A nice sailor you would make; a weak little thing like you!"
The girl sprang from her crouching attitude, and stood upright. As she did so, expressing in her action what her meaning was, Joshua noticed for the first time that she was growing to be large-limbed and strong. She tossed her hair from her face, and said,--
"Father says I shall be a tall woman."
"Well?"
"Well," she repeated half-proudly and half-bashfully. "I should not make such a bad sailor, after all." And then with a motion thoroughly childlike, she knelt on the ground before him; and placing her elbows on his knees, rested her chin in her upturned palms, and looked steadily into his face. "If I was a woman," she said slowly and earnestly, "I would go with you, even if you would not let me."
"How would you manage that?"