Queenie drew up her head in a very lofty way.
“David!” she repeated, superciliously; “and pray who may David be?”
“He is the fisherman’s boy,” answered Bertie, simply. “He lives in that little cottage on the sandhills down by the sea. I lived there a few days before the Squire took me. David was very kind to me then; and I am very fond of him.”
Queenie’s head was held up very high.
“Very fond of a fisher lad!” she repeated, very slowly and clearly, as if such an idea as that required careful investigation. “Well, perhaps in that case you had better go to your dear David. You will find him much more entertaining than me.”
“No,” answered Bertie, with great gravity; “he isn’t so amusing; but I think he is a good boy. He cares about being good much more than you do.”
Queenie turned round upon Bertie with an air of outraged pride and with eyes that flashed angrily. She pointed imperiously towards the boundary fence that divided the Squire’s property from her father’s.
“If you are going to compare me to your precious David, you need not trouble to come here again. Go to your dear fisher people, since you are so fond of them. It is very plain you are not yet to be my friend.”
And Queenie marched away with her head held very high in the air, and Bertie, after gazing after her very much astonished for some minutes, quietly turned away and wandered home, not at all disturbed by the outbreak, only regarding it as a new development of the odd disposition of his little new friend.