"Oh, no," returned Neale. "I'm not going to parade these to school, first off—just as Agnes does every new hair-ribbon she buys."
"Thank you, Mr. Smartie. Hair-ribbons aren't like suits of clothes, I should hope."
"If they were," chuckled the boy, "I s'pose you'd have a pair of my trousers tied on your pigtail and hanging down your back."
For that she chased him out of the house and they had a game of romps down under the grape-arbor and around the garden.
"Dear me!" sighed Ruth, "Neale makes Aggie so tomboyish. I don't know what to do about it."
"Sho, honey!" observed the housekeeper. "What do you care as long as she's healthy and pretty and happy? Our Aggie is one of the best."
"Of course she is," rejoined the oldest Corner House girl. "But she's getting so big—and is so boisterous. And see what trouble she has got into about that frolic last spring. She can't play in this show that the others are going to act in."
"That's too bad," said Mrs. MacCall, threading her needle. "If ever there was a girl cut out to be a mimic and actress, it's Aggie Kenway."
"Don't for pity's sake tell her that!" cried Ruth, in alarm. "It will just about make her crazy, if you do. She is being punished for raiding that farmer's field—and it's right she should be punished——"
"Mean man!" snapped Aunt Sarah, suddenly. "Those gals couldn't have eat many of his old berries."