"I'm so sorry!" exclaimed the little girl, mournfully.
"Why?" inquired her mother.
"Because—because—" she hesitated, "because he has always been a boy ever since I've known him; and I'm afraid when he's a man he won't come running in at the gate, and laugh, and say, 'How do you do, Ella?' and dig round my flowers, and say, 'Have you nothing for me to do, Mrs. Haven?' I'm afraid he'll just come in and hold out his finger so, for me to shake, and then sit down and read the newspapers all the time he is here, as cousin Grason does."
"I promise you, I won't do that," answered Harrison proudly. "I shall do exactly the same as I do now, except perhaps that I shall walk instead of run. You know now I have so little time I want to improve it to the utmost; so I don't loiter much on the way when I'm coming out here."
Still Ella shook back her curls, and could not be persuaded to say that she was not sorry.
"But," said her mother, "when Harrison is a man you will be a young lady."
"And perhaps," suggested Mrs. Danforth, "you will not care to see him then as you do now. He is just about to enter upon his great struggle with life. He will have to work hard. Perhaps if you should meet him some day with a carter's frock on, you would turn your head in the other direction, and not like to have it known that you were acquainted with him."
Harrison's face was crimson; but the little girl only laughed. "You know very well I shouldn't do that!"
"How do I know?" he asked, seriously.
"Because you looked real funny when you were sitting in the back-porch with your apron tied close around your neck, and that little straw hat on; but I liked you just as well as I do now."