“Oh, don’t I? An old ruffian,” added the boy to himself.
“Your aunt’s only a woman, and she got married herself.”
“Oh, yes, that’s true; but she isn’t like other women. She didn’t marry for love.”
“And I don’t wonder at it,” said the girl, dismally. “Love ain’t, as father says, all beer and skittles.”
“Don’t cry, I tell you,” said Syd, angrily, as the girl rubbed her eyes, boy-fashion, with the cuffs of her jacket, after a vain attempt to find her handkerchief.
“Well, ain’t I wiping away the tears, and got no—here, lend us yours, Syd.”
She snatched the boy’s handkerchief out of his breast-pocket, and had a comfortable wipe.
“You used to kiss my eyes dry once, when father had been rowing me, Syd.”
“Yes, and so I will now if you’ll go away, darling.”
“But I’m afraid, Syd. What with the letters, and the races and the people, and the book he’s making on Jim Crow he’s in such a temper that I thought he’d beat me.”