“A delicious plan; you can’t guess how you will enjoy yourself.”
“Can’t I, really?”
“Hadn’t you better get up. You can wash yourself, you know.”
“Oh, I never washed myself yet,” said Ralph.
“Well, you’ll have to begin some time. I’ll sit and stare out of the window, and you can pop into your tub, and have a good splash; I don’t care a bit if you wet the floor; manly boys can’t be always thinking of those sort of things. Now, then, up you get, and I’ll stare out of the window.”
Harriet suited the action to the word. Ralph saw a long, narrow back and very thin light hair only partly concealing it. He observed that the lanky little figure sat very still. He felt impressed, much more impressed than he had been when kind Frederica and unselfish Patience, and even pretty, pretty Rose Amberley had been his school-mothers. They had been commonplace—quite nice, of course, but nothing special. The lanky person was not commonplace.
He hopped up with a little shout, washed and dressed himself after a fashion, and then went up to Harriet.
“Well, pal,” she said, just glancing at him, “are you ready?”
“Quite,” said Ralph. “I like you to call me your pal. You’re a very big girl compared to me, aren’t you?”
“You’re not a girl at all,” said Harriet; “you’re a very manly boy, and you’re awfully pretty; don’t you know that you are very pretty?”