Elsie looked up in surprise. “Did you? Would your father and mother let you read such books?”
“Well,” returned Annis, blushing, “I never heard them mention ‘Oliver Twist’ at all, and I peeped into it one day and found it so interesting I just couldn’t help going on and reading the whole story. I thought why shouldn’t I read what Milly and Brother Charlie and Cousin Horace and Cousin Rose do?”
“Papa says,” returned Elsie slowly, “that I might as well ask why the baby may not eat everything that we older ones do.”
“I suppose he means that our minds haven’t cut their teeth yet,” said Annis, laughing. “But don’t you wish you were grown up enough to read novels?”
“I don’t know; I’d like to read them dearly well, but I love to be papa’s little girl and sit on his knee.”
“You’ll do that when you’re grown up,” remarked Annis, with a wise nod of her pretty head. “I’ll tell you the story of ‘Oliver Twist’ if you want me to.”
The offer was a tempting one, Elsie did want so very much to know what became of Oliver finally, and all about several of the other characters in whom she had become interested; for one minute she hesitated; then said firmly, “It wouldn’t be right for me to hear it, Annis dear, without papa’s leave, and that I shouldn’t even dare to ask. But I thank you all the same.”
“Elsie, you are so good and obedient that you often make me feel ashamed of myself,” Annis said, with a look of hearty, affectionate admiration into her cousin’s face.
The fair face crimsoned. “No, no, Annis, I am not! indeed I am not!” she exclaimed in tremulous tones, the tears springing to her eyes.
“Oh, I know you’re a hypocrite and only pretend to be good!” returned Annis, laughingly. “But there, I hear Milly calling me,” and hastily laying aside her work away she ran.