"Which was he, sweetheart?" Dorothy persisted teasingly, bending her head so as to bring her smiling face directly under the down-dropped blue eyes, and then laughing outright at the confusion she saw there.
"Which one was it?" she repeated. "You know Hugh Knollys rode down the road directly toward you, and then—"
But Mary's white hand was over the laughing lips and silenced them.
"If your father should hear you talking in such fashion, Dot, I feel sure he would be displeased with me for having gone with you to see Moll." Mary made an effort to look and speak naturally, but her eyes were very bright and her face was still deeply flushed.
Dorothy smiled, and shook her curly head wilfully. "Not he," she said with decision; "leastway, not for long. He is stern enough, at times, to others; but he can never be severe with me."
"Ah, Dot, but you are surely a spoiled child," said Mary, with a fond glance at the winsome face.
Dorothy shrugged her small shoulders. "So Aunt Penine is always saying; but all the aunts in the world could never come 'twixt my father and me."
Little 'Bitha, who had been crooning softly to herself, and improvising, after a fashion of her own,—
"The sea is blue, blue, blue,
The sea is blue, and I love the sea,"
suddenly cried out, "Oh, Dot, look, look! What an ugly fish!"