"No, don't take hold of my hand," as she came back and slipped her fingers in his. "Put your hands in your pockets."
"I've only one pocket," she answered meekly, putting her right hand in it.
"Difficulties at once, aren't there?" said Mr. John. "Your clothes want reforming, you see. You'll have to put on Bloomers."
"Oh!" said Mollie.
"I'm afraid you're not very much in earnest," he said. "You surely are not frightened by a trifle like that?" Mollie looked up imploringly.
"Must I?" she asked.
"Well," he answered, her earnestness making him fear that she would actually appear publicly in masculine array, "I don't know that it is necessary at present. A few days wont matter; and, after a while, it will seem to you the natural way to dress."
He was so faithful that evening in reminding her of her short-comings that their tête-à-tête over the little table in the ice-cream saloon, which usually was so cosey and delightful, was quite spoiled. She went to sleep regretting that she had taken Mr. John into her confidence and made it necessary for him to treat her as a boy.
She did not see him again for several days: and meanwhile she had taken her lessons in book-keeping, practiced the writing hours on heavy masculine strokes, learned to walk without dancing little whirligigs on her tiptoes every other minute, and made some progress in the art of whistling. She felt that she had done much to earn his commendation, and was anxious for a meeting.
On the way home from school, one afternoon, she saw his sister's baby at the window—the roundest, fattest, whitest and sweetest of all the babies that had taken up an abode in Mollie's heart, where babies innumerable were enshrined. There it was, being danced in somebody's hands before the window, and reaching out its ten dear little fingers to beckon her in.