"I'm very sorry, Verty; but never mind—you read your Bible, don't you?"
"Yes," Verty replied, "I promised you; and I read all about Joseph, and Nimrod, who was a hunter, and other people."
"Don't you ever read in the New Testament?" Redbud said. "I wish you would read in that, too, Verty."
And Redbud, with all the laughter gone away from her countenance, regarded Verty with her tender, earnest eyes, full of kindness and sincerity.
"I do," Verty replied, "and I like it better. But I'm very bad. I don't think I'm so good when you are away, Redbud. I don't do what you tell me. The fact is, I believe I'm a wild Indian; but I'll grow better as I grow older."
"I know you will," said the kind eyes, plainly, and Verty smiled.
"I'm coming to see you very often here," he said, smiling, "and I'm going to do my work down at the office—that old lady will let me come to see you, I know."
Redbud looked dubious.
"I don't know whether cousin Lavinia would think it was right," she said.
And her head drooped, the long dusky lashes covering her eyes and reposing on her cheek. It was hard for Redbud thus to forbid her boy-playmate, but she felt that she ought to do so.