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 “No, I always kept still when I was told,” said Marilla, trying to speak sternly, albeit she felt her heart waxing soft within her under Davy’s impulsive caresses.

“Well, I s’pose that was ’cause you was a girl,” said Davy, squirming back to his place after another hug. “You a girl once, I s’pose, though it’s awful funny to think of it. Dora can sit still but there ain’t much fun in it  don’t think. Seems to me it must be slow to be a girl. Here, Dora, let me liven you up a bit.”

Davy’s method of “livening up” was to grasp Dora’s curls in his fingers and give them a tug. Dora shrieked and then cried.

“How can you be such a naughty boy and your poor mother just laid in her grave this very day?” demanded Marilla despairingly.

“But she was glad to die,” said Davy confidentially. “I know, ’cause she told me so. She was awful tired of being sick. We’d a long talk the night before she died. She told me you was going to take me and Dora for the winter and I was to be a good boy. I’m going to be good, but can’t you be good running round just as well as sitting still? And she said I was always to be kind to Dora and stand up for her, and I’m going to.”

“Do you call pulling her hair being kind to her?”

“Well, I ain’t going to let anybody else pull it,” said Davy, doubling up his fists and frowning. “They’d just better try it. I didn’t hurt her much Rh