She blinked at him, rebuffed and puzzled. "Why not? I like to sew."
"Aw,"—the palace of his vision was down now, had vanished like Aladdin's own—"what's your new name goin' t' be?" He felt unaccountably cross.
"Johnnie! What's the matter with you? And you mean you don't know? you can't guess? You haven't noticed? And you right here all the time?"
Surprise stiffened Johnnie's countenance. "Oh!" he cried, amazed and glad. "Oh, Cis, I know now! You're goin' t' marry One-Eye!"
Girls, as he knew, were very strange; and surely this one was not the least so. It was a conclusion that came to him now, and forcibly. For at his solemn, heart-felt, happy question, what this girl did was to fall back against her pillow, shouting with laughter, waving both arms, even kicking out her feet in the craziest manner. And "One-Eye!" she repeated; "One-Eye!" Then was swept into another paroxysm of mirth.
Presently, "Well, go on! Tell me!" Johnnie said with proper masculine severity.
"Oh, Johnnie, you are so funny!" she declared breathlessly. "One-Eye! That old man! Oh, never, never, never, never!" The last never was only a squeak.
"When y' git done laughin'—" he prompted; and waited, lips set, and lids lowered with displeasure.
"Somebody a thousand times nicer than One-Eye!" she went on. "A million times nicer! And, oh, Johnnie, how I love him!"
Johnnie's heart sank, heavy with the great pity that now welled up in his heart. He knew whom she meant; but he knew, too, that, sweet and pretty and lovable as she was, and no doubt capable of winning the affections of a mounted policeman or a millionaire, she had not the slightest chance in the world of marrying the handsome, the good, the wise, the peerless and high-born Mr. Perkins. "St! st! st!" he mourned. He sighed, leaned against the side of the shelf, propped his yellow head on a big hand, and watched her sadly.