"Open your mouth and shut your eyes,
And I'll give you something to make you wise,"
chanted Crosby, holding out the ring and beckoning to her.
Closing her eyes upon the spectacle of Mr. Morrow's suffering, Sissy opened a mouth about which the malicious smile still lingered.
Crosby hesitated a moment. He was very much afraid of her, but as she stood, docile and innocent, before him, with her eyes shut and her tiny red mouth open, he could not fancy consequences nearly so well as he could picture the thing his wish painted.
In a moment he had realized it, and Sissy, overwhelmed by astonishment, dumb and impotent with the audacity of the unexpected, felt his arms close about her and his greedy lips upon hers.
Oh, the rage and shame of the proper Sissy! Her mouth fell shut and her eyes flew open. And then, if she could, she would have closed them forever; for, before her in the sudden silence, towering above the triumphant and unrepentant Crosby, stood Mrs. Pemberton, a portentous figure of shocked matronly disapproval. And she promptly placed the blame where mothers of sons have placed it since the first similar impropriety was discovered.
"Cecilia!" she cried in that velvety bass that echoed through the room—"Cecilia Madigan, you—teaching my son a vulgar kissing game—you, the good one! Oh, you deceitful little thing!"
A MERRY, MERRY ZINGARA
It had been Crosby Pemberton's custom to climb the steps that led to Madigan's every Wednesday afternoon at four, with his music neatly done up in a roll, on his way to play duets with Sissy.