“I love ’oo,” said Miss Lally, as a sequence to this performance, putting two of her fingers in her mouth, and surveying society generally with the profoundest composure.
“And don’t you love me, pet?” inquired Mrs. Ormson, venturing upon the hazardous experiment of testing the strength of a child’s affections in the presence of strangers,—“don’t you love me?”
“No, Lally don’t,” was the reply.
“Not if I have brought you something very nice from London?” persisted Mrs. Ormson.
Lally stretched out her little hand for the bonbons, but declined to compromise herself by expressing any attachment for the donor.
“Now, do you not love me?” asked Mrs. Ormson, persuasively.
Lally thought the matter over, and decided in the negative.
“If you do not love my mamma, you must give her the bonbons back, Lally,” suggested Bessie; and she made a feint of taking the sweets away, which drew forth such a wail from the child as attracted public attention to the trio.
“Hush, hush, hush!” exclaimed Bessie. “I would not have believed you could have been so naughty. There, kiss mamma, and make friends with her. You are to give me half those bonbons, you know!”
To which arrangement Lally demurred; but, eventually, being greatly under the dominion of Miss Ormson’s superior will, with much trouble of mind she consented to this division; and under the cedar-tree she and Bessie parted the spoil.