"What a mean, horrid shame!" cried Willy, indignantly. "I do think it is disgusting."
His sister turned on him with flashing eyes. "It is you that is the shame!" she cried. "It is you who ought to be ashamed, Willy. Do you want poor Phil to be all alone when Jerry is married? Do you know that twins sometimes pine away and die, Willy Merryweather, when the other of them dies?"
"Jerry isn't going to die," said Willy, uncomfortably. "What nonsense you talk, Kitty."
"Well, marries. I should think very likely they would, then, if they didn't get married themselves. I think you are perfectly heartless, Willy. And dear Peggy, too, so nice and jolly! and if she goes away back out West without falling in love with Phil, we may never, never see her again; and she has promised me a puppy of the very next litter Simmerimmeris has. So there!"
Willy was silent for a moment, kicking the pebbles thoughtfully.
"Do you think she is—that?" he asked at length, shamefacedly.
"Of course I don't know!" said Kitty, judicially. "Of course very likely nothing is positively decided yet; but I am sure she likes him very, very much, and he takes her out whenever he has a chance."
"There's nobody else for him to take out," put in Willy; "the others are all spoon—"
"Willy, don't be tiresome! and just think! if they should get married and go to live out West, then you and I could both go out to see them, and ride all the ponies, and punch the cows, and have real lassoes, and—and—"
The children were coming home through the wood. Kitty's voice had gradually risen, till now it was a shrill squeak of excitement; but at this moment it broke off suddenly, for there was a rustling of branches, and the next moment Gertrude stood before them with grave looks.