Chapter Forty.
God save the Queen!
“Come and sit a bit with me, Will. I scarce ever see you now.”
Will Johnson, a year older and bigger, scrambled up on the garden seat, and Cissy put her arm round him.
From having been very small of her age, Cissy was suddenly shooting up into a tall, slim, lily-like girl, nearly as white as a lily, and as delicate-looking. “How are you getting on with the ladies, Will?”
“Oh, middling.”
“You know you must learn as much as you can, Will, of aught they teach you that is good. We’re being better learned than Father could have learned us, in book-learning and such; and we must mind and pay heed, the rather because maybe we sha’n’t have it long.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk so about—Father. You’re for ever talking about him,” said Will uneasily, trying to wriggle himself out of his sister’s clasp.
“Not talk about Father!” exclaimed Cissy indignantly. “Will, whatever do you mean? I couldn’t bear not to talk about Father! It would seem like as we’d forgotten him. And you must never forget him—never!”
“I don’t like talking about dead folks. And—well it’s no use biding it. Look here. Cissy—I’m going to give up.”