"How is that? I hope to have a better influence over you."
"As I look at you I regard my pride as most pardonable and natural. My old thoughts and hopes are realized beyond even imagination, although, looking at your eyes, in old times, I always had a high ideal of your capabilities. I should be a clod indeed if I were not proud of such a sister to champion in society."
Madge's hearty laugh was a little forced as she said, "You have a delightfully cool way of taking things for granted. I'm no longer a little sick girl, but, to vary Peggotty's exultant statement, a young lady 'growed.' You forgot yourself, sir, in your greeting; but that was pardonable in your paroxysm of surprise.
"What, Madge! Will you not permit me to be your brother?"
"What an absurd question!" she answered, still laughing. "You are not my brother. Can I permit water to run up hill? You were like a brother, though, when I was a sick child in the queer old times—kinder than most brothers, I think. But, Graydon, I am grown up. See, my head comes above your shoulder."
"Well, you are changed."
"For the better, in some respects, I hope you will find."
"I don't at all like the change you suggest in our relations, and am not sure I will submit to it. It seems absurd to me."
"It will not seem so when you come to think of it," she replied, gravely and gently. "You think of me still as little Madge; I am no longer little Madge, even to myself. A woman's instincts are usually right, Graydon."
"Oh, thank you! I am glad I am still 'Graydon.' Why do you not call me
'Mr. Muir?'"