"Oh, dear—dear!" exclaimed Alexia, quite gone in sympathy, "aren't things just shameful in the world! Of course you oughtn't to be allowed to marry Polly, for you are not half good enough for her, Pickering," she added frankly, "but I'm so sorry for you!" and she put out her hand instinctively.
Pickering took it, and held it a minute in a calm grasp, with the air of a man considering it better to take the little, since he couldn't get all he wanted.
[Illustration: "And you will be my own brother, Jasper," said Phronsie.]
"But now tell why Polly and Mr. King and all the family act so funnily?" cried Alexia, pulling away her hand and suddenly awaking to the fact that this important piece of news had not been made known to her.
"Can't you see for yourself?" cried Pickering, with an impatient stare. "Why, Alexia, where are your eyes?" which was all she could get him to say, as Pickering walked off immediately.
Jasper all this while seemed to find it impossible to be separated from
Mother Fisher; and together they wandered up and down the drawing-room,
Phronsie clinging to his hand. "I always longed since the Little Brown
House days, to call you Mamsie," he said affectionately, looking down
into Mrs. Fisher's face, "and now I can!"
"And you will really and truly be my very own brother, Jasper," said
Phronsie, as they walked on.
End of Project Gutenberg's Five Little Peppers Grown Up, by Margaret Sidney