“In search of fame together,” put in Jill.
“Ah, yes! Jack and Jill went up the hill In search of fame together, Jack fell down and broke his crown, And—”
“No,” interrupted Jill, “I won’t come tumbling after. You can say that I went on alone.”
“But that’s so unkind,” he objected; “besides it doesn’t rhyme.”
“Oh! well,” she answered after a pause devoted to thinking out a finish to the verse, “put, ‘But Jill goes climbing ever.’ That rhymes, and it’s true; I’m not going to stop in the valley trying to haul you up.”
“You’re a disagreeable little prig,” he exclaimed. “I should as likely as not be obliged to haul you.”
“And I daresay you could manage that,” she answered rubbing her cheek against his coat sleeve; “you’re big enough goodness knows. I should like to be hauled up and have no more climbing to do, Jack; it would be such a change. But that’s too good to come true I’m afraid, it will always be more kicks than coppers it seems to me.”
“What do you mean?” asked St. John in astonishment. “There will be no more kicks, Jill, when you are once married to me; I shall take all those.”
Jill went on caressing his coat sleeve vigorously, and her hand pressed his with tender warmth.
“We shall never marry, Jack,” she said; “we can’t.”