‘You are a brick, Isobel,’ he said; ‘you can climb as well as any boy, and yet you are so nice and dainty. I wish the Lister girls down at home saw you, they are such stiff, starched, stuck-up prigs; they think that no girl can climb and do that sort of thing and yet be what they call ladylike. If they have got to get over a wall, no matter how low it is, they cry out and make such a fuss. We fellows hate them. They spoil all the parties and picnics with their silly ways, and yet they have to be asked, for their mother lets them have awfully jolly parties, and they always ask us.’
‘Silly things!’ said Isobel, turning round now that she had reached the end of the branch, and trying to bob up and down so as to get a swing.
‘But I am rather sorry for them all the same, for I expect they have no brothers. I always pity girls who have no brothers. I can tell them as soon as I see them, they walk so straight and proper, one on each side of their governess.’
‘But supposing there are three of them,’ said Vivian, laughing.
‘Oh, then two walk in front, and one with the governess,’ said Isobel; ‘but they all have the same proper look. If you like, I’ll point some of them out to you when we go down the Finchley Road.’
‘You would point out girls you knew, who have no brothers,’ said Vivian, trying to tease her.
‘I’m not so mean,’ answered Isobel, the delicate colour rising to her face at the imputation; ‘but if you intend to come along this branch you had better come quickly. I see Claude’s cap past the end of the hen-house.’
Vivian began crawling along the branch, but presently he stopped short.