Johnny stared at her. It was a puzzle.
“If,” said Lily, distinctly, “you are afraid to go home, if you think your aunt will tell, I will let you get into Aunt Laura's baby-carriage again, and I will wheel you a little way.”
Johnny would have liked at that moment to knock Lily down, as he had his aunt Janet. Lily looked at him shrewdly. “Oh yes,” said she, “you can knock me down in the dust there if you want to, and spoil my nice clean dress. You will be a boy, just the same.”
“I will never marry you, anyway,” declared Johnny.
“Aren't you afraid I'll tell on you and get you another spanking if you don't?”
“Tell if you want to. I'd enough sight rather be spanked than marry you.”
A gleam of respect came into the little girl's wisely regarding blue eyes. She, with the swiftness of her sex, recognized in forlorn little Johnny the making of a man. “Oh, well,” said she, loftily, “I never was a telltale, and, anyway, we are not grown up, and there will be my trousseau to get, and a lot of other things to do first. I shall go to Europe before I am married, too, and I might meet a boy much nicer than you on the steamer.”
“Meet him if you want to.”
Lily looked at Johnny Trumbull with more than respect—with admiration—but she kept guard over her little tongue. “Well, you can leave that for the future,” said she with a grown-up air.
“I ain't going to leave it. It's settled for good and all now,” growled Johnny.