"I don't like cats," I replied stubbornly, shaking my head. "I saw Peter Finn's dog kill one. He shook it by the neck till it was dead. I'm goin' to train my dog to kill 'em, too."
Raising herself on the toes of her red shoes, she bent upon me a look so scorching that it might have burned a passage straight through me into the bricks.
"I knew you were a horrid bad boy. You looked it!" she cried.
At this I saw in my imagination the closed gate of the enchanted garden, and my budding sportsman's proclivities withered in the white blaze of her wrath.
"I don't reckon I'll train him to catch 'em by the back of thar necks," I hastened to add.
At this she turned toward me again, her whole vivid little face with its red mouth and arched black eyebrows inspired by a solemn purpose.
"If you'll promise never, never to kill a cat, I'll let you come into the garden—for a minute," she said.
I hesitated for an instant, dazzled by the prospect and yet bargaining for better terms. "Will you let me walk under the arbours and down all the box-bordered paths?"
She nodded. "Just once," she responded gravely.
"An' may I play under the trees on the terrace where you built yo' houses of moss and stones?"