'Well, Cherry, you see I've a rival to Lord Gerald.'
'I began to think I ought to offer him to you, though it would go to my heart.'
'As if I would be put off with a slender little wand like that,' said John. 'That's what I call a stick.'
'That's what I call a club,' retorted Cherry. 'I should want somebody else to carry me if I took such a monster;' and they proceeded to a sort of tilt between their two supporters.
'I won't have disrespect to my steadfast friend! She's made of olive tree; her name is Olivia; and I believe Wilmet is jealous of her.'
'Indeed she is,' said Robin. 'When you go out all by yourself, and come in hardly able to speak. That's what he went and did at Paris.'
'When one has got a wife and a sister, one breaks loose sometimes. Here, you little Star, come and speak to me! Why, you were a blackberry-gathering baby when I saw you last! Let me look at you now. How old are you?'
'Eleven and a quarter,' breathed a little voice, as he gathered two tiny hands into his, and a pair of porcelain blue eyes glanced up for a moment out of the most dainty little oval chiselled face and pink-and-white complexion, set in soft brown hair.
'And can eleven and a quarter hatch an egg from the Palais Royal? Not from Bill's nid d'avis, but of a bird of larger growth,' as Stella, with a half-breathed 'thank you' rosiness spreading over her face, and lips raised for a kiss, beheld a beautiful blue egg, containing implements of needlework.
John tried to talk to her over it, but could get nothing but monosyllables, and blushes, and smiles, till he released her, and she flew off, 'To show her egg to Theodore,' said Cherry. 'There's some baking going on; and he never stirs from the kitchen while he can handle the dough.'