'Oh no,' she said, in a tone of wonderment that such a question should be asked.
'But I am not pretty and—'
'Oh, but you are!' she said eagerly, interrupting me.
'But,' I said, with a choking sensation in my voice, 'I am lame.' and
I looked at the crutches lying among the ferns beside me.
'Ah, but I like you all the better for being lame,' she said, nestling up to me.
'But you like nimble boys,' I said, 'such as Frank.'
She looked puzzled. The anomaly of liking nimble boys and crippled boys at the same time seemed to strike her. Yet she felt it was so, though it was difficult to explain it.
'Yes, I do like nimble boys,' she said at last, plucking with her fingers at a blade of grass she held between her teeth. 'But I think I like lame boys better, that is if they are—if they are—you.'
I gave an exclamation of delight. But she was two years younger than
I, and scarcely, I suppose, understood it.
'He is very pretty,' she said meditatively, 'but he has not got love-eyes like you and Snap, and I don't think I could love any little boy so very, very much now who wasn't lame.'