There was a moment of embarrassment; then the silence was promptly broken by Robinette.
“Well, Middy dear, are we the best of friends?” she asked, rising from the bench and putting out her hand.
The lad took it and said all in a glow of chivalry, “You’re the dearest, the best, and the prettiest cousin in the world! You don’t mind my thinking you’re the prettiest?”
“Mind it? I delight in it! I shall come to your ship and pour out tea for you in my most fetching frock. Your friends will say: ‘Who is that particularly agreeable lady, Carnaby?’ And you, with swelling chest, will respond, ‘That’s my American cousin, Mrs. Loring. She’s a nice creature; I’m glad you like her!’”
Robinette’s imitation of Carnaby’s possible pomposity was so amusing and so clever that it drew a laugh from the boy in spite of himself.
“Just let anyone try to call you a ‘creature’!” he exclaimed. “He’d have me to reckon with! Oh! I am so tired of being a boy! The inside of me is all grown up and everybody keeps on looking at the outside and thinking I’m just the same as I always was!”
“Dear old Middy, you’re quite old enough to be my protector and that is what you shall be! Now shall we go in? I want you to stand near by while I ask your grandmother a favor.”
“She won’t do it if she can help it,” was Carnaby’s succinct reply.