“No, no, Katie; not more than you at any rate.”
“I say yes, yes, Mary. You will always be ten times as popular as I; some people have the gift of it; I wish I had. But why do you look so grave again?”
“Why, Katie, don't you see you are just saying over again, only in a different way, what your provoking cousin—I shall call him Mr. Brown, I think, in future—was telling me for my good in St. John's gardens. You saw how long we were away from you; well, he was lecturing me all the time, only think; and now you are going to tell it me all over again. But go on, dear; I sha'n't mind anything from you.”
She put her arm round her cousin's waist, and looked up playfully into her face. Miss Winter saw at once that no great harm, perhaps some good, had been done in the passage of arms between her relatives.
“You made it all up,” she said, smiling, “before we found you.”
“Only just, though. He begged my pardon just at last, almost in a whisper, when you were quite close to us.”
“And you granted it?”
“Yes, of course; but I don't know that I shall not recall it.”
“I was sure you would be falling out before long, you got on so fast. But he isn't quite so easy to turn round your finger as you thought, Mary.”
“Oh, I don't know that,” said Mary, laughing; “you saw how humble he looked at last, and what good order he was in.”