"Now don't you, Ciss," he said; "I don't want anything—presents and things, I mean. Just let's be jolly."
"Hu-uh-uh!" sobbed Cissy; "and Janet Sheepshanks told me it was next week. I'm sure she did; and I set them so nicely to be ready in time—more than two months ago, and now they aren't ready after all."
"What aren't ready?" said Hugh John.
"The bantam chickens," sobbed Cissy; "and they are lovely as lovely. And peck—you should just see them peck."
"I'd just as soon have them next week, or the next after that—rather indeed. Shut up now, Ciss. Stop crying, I tell you. Do you hear?" He was instinctively adopting that gruff masculine sternness which men consider to be on the whole the most generally effective method of dealing with the incomprehensible tears of their women-kind. "I don't care if you cry pints, but I'll hit you if you won't stop! So there!"
Cissy stopped like magic, and assumed a distant and haughty expression with her nose in the air, the surprising dignity of which was marred only by the recurring spasmodic sniff necessary to keep back the moisture which was still inclined to leak from the corners of her eyes.
"I would indeed," said Hugh John, like all good men quickly remorseful after severity had achieved its end. "I'd ever so much rather have the nicest presents a week after; for on a regular birthday you get so many things. But by next week, when you've got tired of them all, and don't have anything new—that's the proper time to get a present."
"Oh, you are nice," said Cissy impulsively, coming over to Hugh John and clasping his arm with both her hands. He did not encourage this, for he did not know where it might end, and the open moor was not by any means the ivy-grown corner of the stable. Cissy went on.
"Yes, you are the nicest thing. Only don't tell any body——"