"Well, for instance, she was never cruel."
"I cruel? Well, I like that! I often and often put slugs and snails and worms, and that sort of thing, out of the path for fear any one should tread on them. I cruel?"
"You are in one way," said Rosamund. "I am not a scrap afraid of you, and I say you are cruel when you terrify the servants and your poor mother, who has no one but you, and"——
"We will get back into the current if you say another word," said Irene.
"No, we won't," replied Rosamund, "for I will keep this oar, and you cannot wrench it from me."
She grasped it more firmly as she spoke. Irene looked at her for a moment, and her small, wild, charming face seemed to lighten as though with sudden passion. Then she broke into a merry laugh.
"I declare it is refreshing to hear you," she said. "Only don't scold me too much at first. Let us be jolly for a little bit. When will you come to see me again?"
"That depends on your mother and, I suppose, on the people I am living with—the Merrimans."
"I don't know them."
"Don't know them? Why, they live quite close."