"But, oh, Empey, it'll be a long time before you have to go out to India!"
Her red mouth drops a little at the corners, and her dimples become invisible. He looks at her with a gleam of mischief in his lazy eyes.
"What do you call a long time?" he asks. "Just a year or two, that's nothing. Never mind, Bee, you'll get on very well without me."
"Oh, Empey!"
The great blue eyes glisten; and Claude is penitent in an instant.
"You ridiculous old chap!" he says gaily. "Haven't you been told thousands of times that my dad is your guardian, and as good as a father to you? And do you suppose that I'd go to India and leave you behind? You're coming too, you know, and you'll sit perched up on the back of an elephant to see me shoot tigers. What a time we'll have out there, Bee!"
"Do you really mean it?" she cries, with a rapturous face; blue eyes shining like sapphires, cheeks aglow with the richest rose.
"Of course I do. It was all arranged, years ago, by our two governors; I thought Aunt Hetty had told you. But I say, Bee, when the time does come, I hope you won't make a fuss about leaving England!"
"Not a bit of it," she says sturdily. "I shall like to see the Ganges, and the big water-lilies, and the alligators. But what's to become of Dolly?"
"I don't know; I suppose she'll have to stay with Aunt Hetty. You belong to us, you see, old girl; so you and I shall never be parted."