"It is your hour for the stocks," I hinted.
"I won't go," she retorted.
To secure that grace of carriage and elegance of presence necessary for a young lady of quality, and to straighten her back, which truly was as straight as a pine, Sir William and Mistress Molly were accustomed to strap her to a pine plank and lock her in the stocks for an hour at noon, forbidding Peter, Esk, and me to tickle the soles of her feet.
It was noon now; I could hear the guard changing at the north block-house, tramp! tramp! tramp! across the stony way.
"If you don't go to the stocks now," I said, "you'll be sorry when you do go."
"If you tickle my feet, you great booby, I'll tell Sir William," she retorted, balancing defiantly from one heel to the other.
"Will you go, Silver Heels?" I insisted.
"My name isn't Silver Heels," she observed, still coolly tilting back and forth on heels and toes. "Call me by my right name and perhaps I'll go—and perhaps I won't. So there, Mr. Micky Dunce!"
"If I call you Felicity Warren, will you go?" I inquired cautiously.
"There! you have called me Felicity Warren!" she cried in triumph.