"Then I'll pick out the ripest in the basket for you," said Irene, her voice trembling.
"You take care there are no—no live things"——
"Hush, Hughie! Come with me," said Rosamund; and she pulled the reluctant boy out of the summer-house.
"Now, Hughie," she said when she had got him quite by herself, "I want to know, in the first instance, exactly how old you are."
"I was fourteen my last birthday," he said, drawing himself up to his full height.
"You suppose yourself to be a good bit of a man, don't you?"
"Well, I'm not far from being a man, am I, Rosamund? You don't mind my calling you Rosamund, do you?"
"You may call me anything in the world you please."
"Well, I'll call you Rosamund, because all the rest of the people here do; but by-and-by perhaps I shall be behind a counter, and you will come in and ask for stationery—I want particularly to go into a stationer's shop—or any other article you fancy, and I'll have to say, 'Yes, miss.' That is, unless you're married. You'll be much too grand to notice me in those days, won't you, Rosamund?"
Rosamund turned and looked calmly at him.