“‘Why, no,’ says he, ‘I never thought you did.’
“‘But I will,’ ses I, ‘and I am come to do that very thing, come to tell you something Aunt Dora made me promise never to tell.’
“‘John, you mussent, I can’t hear you,’ he began, but I yelled up, ‘you shall; I will tell; it’s about Dora and that Reed. She don’t like him.’ Somehow he stopped hushin’ me then and pretended to fix his books while I said how last summer I overheard this Reed ask you to be his wife, and you told him no; you did not love him well enough, and never could, and how you meant it too. There diddent neither of you know I was out in the balcony, I said, until he was gone, and I sneazed when you talked to me and made me promise never to tell what I’d heard to father, nor mother, nor nobody. I never did tell them, but I’ve told the doctor, and I ain’t sorry, it made him look so glad. He took me, and Tish, and Ben, and Burt, all out riding this afternoon and talked to them real nice, telling them they must be good while you was gone. Tish and Jim are pretty good, but Ben has broken the spy-glass and the umberill, and Burt has set down on the kittens, and oh I must tell you; he took a big iron spoon which he called a sovel and dug up every single gladiola in the garden! Ain’t they terrible Boys?
“There, they’ve found where I be, and I hear Burt coming up the stairs one step at a time, so I must stop, for they’ll tip over the ink, or something. Dear Auntie, I do love you ever and ever so much, and if you want my Auntie and a grown up woman I’d marry you. Do boys ever marry their aunts?
“Your, with Due Respect,
“John Russell.
“p.s. Excuse my awful spellin. I never could spel, you know, or make the right Capitols.
“p.s. No. 2. Burt has just tumbled the whole length of the wood-house stares, and landed plump in the pounding barrel, half full of water. You orto hear him Yell.”
CHAPTER V.
DORA’S DIARY.
“Morrisville, June 13th.