A hurt, indignant flush rose into Steenie’s eager face, and her lip trembled.
“There, there! My dear child! It was only astonishment—admiration—which made me say that! Don’t misunderstand me. You can do anything—anything—which you set out to do, you—you—brave little thing!”
With that the Judge wheeled sharply round, and tears gathered in somebody’s eyes, but not in Steenie’s.
CHAPTER XIII.
SUTRO.
My dear, suppose you let our friend Sutro, here, ride home and tell your people that I am going to keep you for dinner? Then they will not be anxious, and we will have leisure to consider this matter thoroughly. What do you say?” The Judge’s tone, addressing Steenie, was as grave and considerate as if she had been Madam Calthorp herself, and it restored her wounded pride at once.
Nobody likes being laughed at, least of all a child, about whose earnestness there is never any pretence. “Baby” had been a hard word for ambitious ears to hear.
“Thank you. I should be as glad as glad to stay! If—my grandmother said I was never to ’trude upon your ‘family life;’ that just ’cause you asked me to study with Beatrice, I mustn’t forget an’ be too—something or other. It meant I mustn’t go round an’ be a ‘noosance,’ like Sutro is to Mr. Tubbs.”
“‘Noosance’! She couldn’t be a ‘noosance,’ could she, Papa Courtenay?” cried Beatrice, dancing gayly about her friend, delighted with the prospect of a visit.