Page:Caroline Lockhart--The full of the Moon.djvu/31

 bosoms, and it doesn't budge me. I'm going to do what I want to do just once in my life if I never do it again. Ever since I was born I've been doing mostly what some one else wanted me to do. Now I'm going to do what I want to do, if I hang for it!"

"You'll only get a life sentence, Nan, women are seldom hanged."

"The wildest adventure I ever had was the time Sancho ran away with the pony cart and spilled us off the bridge," she added resentfully.

"It's shameful the way you've been sheltered and protected" Bob declared. "It makes my blood boil."

"Don't laugh at me" she pleaded "or I'll feel that I can't even talk to you."

"I'm not, Nan. It's only that I'm such a wag that I have to be funny even when I'm sad. But tell me where do you get this adventurous streak of yours!" his eyes twinkled. "Surely not from your mother!"

"No, not from mother," Nan answered drolly "from father. I'm exactly like father—before he tamed down—only he won't admit it."