She seized it, repeating:
"King, King, double King!
Can't take back a given thing!"
"You needn't say 'King, King, double King,'" said I, offended; "for I was not going to take it back, silly!"
"Truly, Michael?" she asked, looking up at me. Then she added, sweetly, "I am sorry I bit you."
"Ho!" said I, "do you think you hurt me?"
She said nothing, playing with the marbles in her lap.
I sat and watched the bees fly to and fro like bullets; in the quiet even the hills, cloaked in purple mantles, smoked with the steam of hidden snow-drifts still lingering in ravines where arbutus scents the forest twilight.
The robins had already begun their rippling curfew call; crickets creaked from the planked walk. Behind me the voices of Peter and Esk rose in childish dispute or excited warning to "Knuckle down hard!" Already the delicate spring twilight stained the east with primrose and tints of green. A calm star rose in the south.
Presently Silver Heels pinched me, and I felt around to pinch back.