"Not you!"
"Don't be rude. Do you know, that I shall be eighteen on Tuesday?"
"I know that you are trying to pull my leg, miss! You are not an hour over sixteen—if so much. I should put you down at fourteen if I were asked."
"Well, if you won't believe me, you can see the certificate of birth and baptism.—I was born at Fairplains."
"But, Nancy," suddenly pulling up his cob, "I've always understood you were a mere child—if you really are eighteen—I—I feel completely bouleversé; in other words, shattered; for I've been treating you as a little girl, and all the time, you are a young lady! I declare, I'm so upset, I shall tumble off the cob!"
"Don't tumble yet; stick on, and I'll explain. Daddy likes me to look a mere child, and can't endure the idea of my growing up. So I always wear simple frocks, and short skirts—it was only the other day, I put my hair up."
"Did you wear a pig-tail?"
"Yes, of course I did—it was a beauty, too."
"And I know I'd have pulled it! that's one temptation removed! Well, let me here and now apologize for my many enormities. I'm most frightfully sorry; I wish you were only sixteen."
"You may go on just as if I were. They all do."