"For ever an' ever!" he said, nodding a stern brow. "I 'specks she'll be awfull' sorry some day."
"But where shall you go to?"
"I'm thinking of Persia!" he said darkly.
"Oh!"
"It's nice an' far, you know, an' I might meet Aladdin with the wonderful lamp."
"Alas, Imp, I fear not," I answered, shaking my head; "and besides, it will take a long, long time to get there, and where shall you sleep at night?"
The Imp frowned harder than ever, staring straight before him as one who wrestles with some mighty problem; then his brow cleared and he spoke in this wise:
"Henceforth, Uncle Dick, my roof shall be the broad expanse of heaven, an'--an'--wait a minute!" he broke off, and, lugging something from his pocket, disclosed a tattered, paper-covered volume (the Imp's books are always tattered), and hastily turning the pages, paused at a certain paragraph and read as follows:
"'Henceforth my roof shall be the broad expanse of heaven, an' all tyrants shall learn to tremble at my name!' Doesn't that sound fine, Uncle Dick? I tried to get Ben--you know, the gardener's boy--to come an' live in the 'greenwood' with me a bit and help to make 'tyrants' tremble, but he said he was 'fraid his mother might find him some day, an' he wouldn't, so I'm going to make them tremble all by myself, unless you will come an' be Little-John, like you were once before--oh, do!"
Before I could answer, hearing footsteps, I looked round, and my heart leaped, for there was Lisbeth coming down the path.