"So she jolly well did!" commented her brother wrathfully.
"Yes, but he never opened his mouth 'cept once, and then he only said something about selling a farm and going to sea, and Georgie thinks he hates her."
Cornelius James pondered over this insight into the enigma of the feminine heart.
"She's an ass!" was his final comment. "And what about Miss Mayne? Don't tell me she's in love!" Assuredly the queen could do no wrong nor stoop to such folly.
"I don't know," replied Jane, "but last night I went to her room to borrow a ribbon to tie my hair up with 'cos I'd lost mine, an' she was lying on her bed with her face in her hands. I thought she had a headache, and I was going out again when she jumped up. Her face was all smeary and her eyes were red, like when her brother was killed. 'Member? I per-tended I didn't notice anything, and asked for the ribbon and she got it from a drawer and gave it to me without a word, and suddenly she sat down on the window seat and put her arms round me and held me against her so tight I could hardly breathe."
The mystified eyes of the brother and sister met. "But didn't she say anything?" demanded the former. "Has anybody been killed she's fond of?"
"I don't think so," replied Jane; "she hardly said anything. Just whispered little soft words like 'darling.'"
"She did that when we tried to cheer her up 'cos her brother died," said the boy, as if condoning a lapse on Miss Mayne's part.
"Oh, there was one thing," added Jane after reflection; "she said, 'Oh, Janie, Janie, don't grow up!'"
Which left Cornelius James not much the wiser.