“Oh, you yelled so that I didn’t distinguish what you said. Yes, oh, yes,” catching his arm as he started away again, “certainly I will go with you. It’s a lovely day, isn’t it?”
His eyes smiled into hers as he said gently, “Well, get your hat. I’ll wait here for you.”
She was gone only a moment, and rejoined him with her big hat thrown back somewhat rakishly on her head. “Aunt Amelia is cross. She wanted me to wash her hair for her, but I told her I was no lady’s maid.”
Her eyes sought his face and found no response to her frivolity. “Perhaps you think I should have stayed at home to wash her hair,” she suggested anxiously.
Then, as he still did not answer, she stopped and said in an offended tone, “Oh, well, if that’s the way you feel about it, I’ll go back and do it.”
Robert turned and said to her gravely, “It is not for me to say whether you shall or shall not wash your aunt’s hair, but if you must have the truth, I think your manner of refusing a trifle rude.”
She flushed, and the quick tears came to her eyes, but she kept a brave appearance as she said, “Perhaps I was rude, but if you had to live with Aunt Amelia and wait on her like a slave, as I do, you might forget your manners, too, sometimes.”
He turned and looked at her as he said, “I don’t want to quarrel with you to-day, little girl. You may be as rude as you please to your aunt, only be good to me.”
Her eyes flashed up with sudden joy, and she looked quickly at him, but the calm, impersonal glance she met, quelled the thought she had entertained for that brief second.
Then she said contritely: “I do owe every thing to Aunt Amelia, for I couldn’t live on my pittance anywhere else,—but I do, truly I do, earn my board. However, if you say so, I’ll go right back now and apologize to her.”