"Why, that I should fall--what do they call it?--fall in love, I suppose."
"You fall in love, you dissolute doll! How dare you fall in love, sir, without my leave?"
"Well, I was afraid to ask you, Clara. I couldn't tell what you would say."
"Oh, that must depend, of course, on who Mrs. Doll is to be! If it's a good little thing with blue satin arms, and a sash and a slip, and pretty blue eyes that go with a string, perhaps I'll forgive you, poor child, and set you up with a house, and a tea-set, and a mother-of-pearl perambulator."
"Now, don't talk nonsense," he answered. "Before long I shall be a man, and then you'll be afraid of me, and put up your hands, and shriek, and want me to kiss you."
I had indulged him too much, and his tongue was taking liberties. I soon stopped him.
"How dare you bark at me, you wretched little white-woolled nursery dog?"
I left him, and went with my basket of flowers along the path to the churchyard. For a while he stood there frightened, till his mother looked forth from the drawing-room window. Between the two fears he chose the less, and followed me to my father's grave. I stood there and angrily waved him back, but he still persisted, though trembling.
"Cousin Clara," he said--and his lisp was quite gone, and he tried to be in a passion--"Cousin Clara, you shall hear what I have got to say. You have lived with me now a long time, and I'm sure we have agreed very well, and I--I--no, I don't see why we should not be married."
"Don't you indeed, sir?"