Red as a Rose is She: A Novel

by Rhoda Broughton

"No, nothing; I—I—only came to tell you that I had put—it back."

At the end of her sentence her eyes, downcast at first, raise themselves to his with the innocent, eager expectancy of a child that waits for approbation of some infantile good action.

"You have, have you?" he cries, joyfully, catching both her hands; "and was it because I asked you?"

"I don't know for what other reason," she answers, unwillingly.

"And have not read a word more of it?"

"Not a word."

"Not even looked at the end?"

"No."

"Well, you are a good child!"

"Child! child!—always child!" she cries, puckering up her low forehead into the semblance of a frown. "I have a good mind to go and fetch it down again!"