t fact did remain. He had been
spanked, he had thrown his own aunt down in the dust. He had taken
advantage of her little-girl protection, but he was a boy. Lily did not
understand his why at all, but she bowed before it. However, that she
would not admit. She made a rapid change of base. "What," said she, "are
you going to do next?"

Johnny stared at her. It was a puzzle.

"If," said Lily, distinctly, "you are afraid to go home, if you think
your aunt will tell, I will let you get into Aunt Laura's baby-carriage
again, and I will wheel you a little way."

Johnny would have liked at that moment to knock Lily down, as he had his
aunt Janet. Lily looked at him shrewdly. "Oh yes," said she, "you can
knock me down in the dust there if you want to, and spoil my nice clean
dress. You will be a boy, just the same."

"I will never marry you, anyway," declared Johnny.

"Aren't you afraid I'll tell on you and get you another spanking if you
don't?"

"Tell if you want to. I'd enough sight rather be spanked than marry
you."

A gleam of respect came into the little girl's wisely regarding blue
eyes. She, with the swiftness of her sex, recognized in forlorn little
Johnny the making of a man. "Oh, well," said she, loftily, "I never
was a telltale, and, anyway, we are not grown up, and there will be my
trousseau to get, and a lot of other things to do first. I shall go to
Europe before I am married, too, and I might meet a boy much nicer than
you on the steamer."

"Meet him if you want to."

Lily looked at Johnny Trumbull with more than respect--with
admiration--but she kept guard over her little tongue. "Well, you can
leave that for the future," said she with a grown-up air.

"I ain't going to leave it. It's settled for good and all now," growled
Johnny.

To his immense surprise, Lily curved her white embroidered sleeve over
her face and began to weep.

"What's the matter now?" asked Johnny, sulkily, after a minute.

"I think you are a real horrid boy," sobbed Lily.

Lily looked like nothing but a very frilly, sweet, white flower.
Johnny could not see her face. There was nothing to be seen except
that delicate fluff of white, supported on dainty white-socked,
white-slippered limbs.

"Say," said Johnny.

"You are real cruel, when I--I saved your--li-fe," wailed Lily.

"Say," said Johnny, "maybe if I don't see any other girl I like better
I will marry you when I am grown up, but I won't if you don't stop that
how