Johnny began to climb out of the baby-carriage.
“What will she do next, then?” asked Lily.
“I don't know,” Johnny replied, gloomily.
He was out of the carriage then, and Lily was readjusting the pillows and things. “Get that nice embroidered pillow I threw over the bushes,” she ordered, crossly. Johnny obeyed. When she had finished putting the baby-carriage to rights she turned upon poor little Johnny Trumbull, and her face wore the expression of a queen of tragedy. “Well,” said Lily Jennings, “I suppose I shall have to marry you when I am grown up, after all this.”
Johnny gasped. He thought Lily the most beautiful girl he knew, but to be confronted with murder and marriage within a few minutes was almost too much. He flushed a burning red. He laughed foolishly. He said nothing.
“It will be very hard on me,” stated Lily, “to marry a boy who tried to murder his nice aunt.”
Johnny revived a bit under this feminine disdain. “I didn't try to murder her,” he said in a weak voice.
“You might have, throwing her down in all that awful dust, a nice, clean lady. Ladies are not like boys. It might kill them very quickly to be knocked down on a dusty road.”
“I didn't mean to kill her.”
“You might have.”