"Oh, I forgot," Timothy rolled over. "Miss 'Titia called to me from the house as I came by to tell you she was ready for you."
"Why didn't you tell me then, an hour ago? You've been here a half hour at least and haven't said a word about it!"
"I forgot," replied Timothy humbly, thoroughly ground to the earth by that speech of Arethusa's with its "I'll be a sister to you" tone.
"That's evident. She probably thinks I'm lost or something by this time. If you weren't so busy always seeing how you can annoy me, you might remember when people give you messages to deliver!" Arethusa swept majestically off, bending her head to escape the low-growing willow branches, and Timothy watched her miserably. But she had gone only about six or seven paces when she turned and came back to him, "And Timothy," she announced, as sternly as Miss Eliza herself might have spoken, "if you ever even try to kiss me again, like you did last night, I'll do something worse to you than just slap. I'll ... I'll ... It's ... I don't like to be kissed."
"But you used to kiss me," Timothy sat upright, here was his alibi and a chance to defend himself.
"I know I did, but we were babies. That was ages ago, and it's very, very different. Grown girls don't kiss grown men. It's not nice. It's.... It's just like poor white trash!"
And with last stroke of annihilation, Arethusa departed for the house and Miss Letitia and her fitting, with Miss Johnson trotting at her heels, leaving Timothy in abject abandonment to misery under the willow tree.
CHAPTER IX
Miss Eliza eyed Arethusa over her glasses with stern displeasure. She dropped her sewing into her lap and prepared to take the delinquent one to task.