“For little girls, anyway,” supplemented Eve.
“Little girls are taboo, also,” declared Gifford Bruce. “I can’t get off to-day, for I want to see Rudolph on his return, but to-morrow, I pack up my Vernie child and take her back to our own little old Chicago on the lake. These Aspens are too black for us!”
“Now, Uncle, I don’t want to go,” and Vernie pouted prettily. “And sumpum tells me I won’t go,” she added with a roguish glance at her uncle, whom she usually twisted round her rosy little finger.
But he gave her a grave smile in return, and the subject was dropped for the moment.
Soon after noon, Braye came up from the city, and listened, frowning, to the tales that were told him.
“You promised me, Vernie,” he said, reproachfully.
“I know it, Cousin Rudolph, but you see, I’ve never kept a promise in my whole life,—and I didn’t want to break my record!”
“Naughty Flapper! I won’t give you the present I brought for you.”
“Oh, yes you will,” and so wheedlesome was the lovely face, and so persuasive the soft voice, that Vernie, after a short argument, seized upon a small jeweller’s packet and unwrapped a pretty little ring.
“Angel Cousin,” she observed, “you’re just about the nicest cousin I possess,—beside being the only one!”