“Hush-sh!” came from her aunt, while Kenneth felt a twinge similar to that he had experienced when he read Hal’s letter about the darkies.
That was bad enough, but this was worse. He laughed, however, and answered:
“I am Kenneth Stannard, your guardian’s son.”
“Oh-h!” Connie said, pursing up her little mouth and moving forward so as to look at him more closely. “I’m so glad. I like boys ever so much.”
Leaning back, she nestled closer to him, and rubbed her blue hood against his shoulder in a caressing kind of way, which sent the blood tingling through his veins and made him forget the groom.
“Will we have a Christmas-tree to-night, with tapers?” she asked, as they passed a clump of pines near the top of the hill.
Kenneth looked distressed. Anything like a Christmas-tree had never come into his experience. He had heard of them at St. Jude’s at Rocky Point, but had never seen any one or knew that they had them in a private house.
“I am afraid not,” he answered. “We don’t have such things here; but if the snow does not all melt off, we’ll slide down hill to-morrow.”
To Connie, who had never slidden down hill, the prospect of doing so atoned for the absence of a Christmas-tree.
“That will be jolly. I wish it was to-morrow,” she said, just as they stopped before the farmhouse.