"Satan! She's no Satan, I'd have you know, you young jackanapes!" said the squire, angrily, for though always abusing the "little vixen," Aurora, himself, he would suffer no one else to do it.
"Look, look how she dashes along!" exclaimed Louis, with kindling eyes, unheeding the reproof. "There! she has leaped her pony over the gate, and now she is standing up in her saddle; and—bravo! well done, Gipsy! She has actually sprung over black Jupe's head in a flying leap."
While he spoke Gipsy came running up the lawn toward the house, singing, in a high, shrill voice, as she ran:
"He died long, long ago, long ago—
He had no hair on the top of his head,
The place where the wool ought to grow,
Lay down the shovel and the hoe-o-o,
Hang up——"
"Stop that, stop that, you vixen! Stop it, I tell you, or I'll hang you up!" said the squire, angrily. "Where do you learn those vulgar doggerels?"
"Make 'em up, Guardy—every one of 'em. Ain't I a genius?"
"I don't believe it, you scapegrace."
"No wonder you don't, seeing there never was a genius in the family before; but 'better late than never,' you know."
"None of your impertinence, miss. Give an account of yourself, if you please. Where were you this morning? Answer me that!"
"Nowhere, sir."