Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/32

24 "Did you ever cry?"

"I have always been told," he says pompously, "that I was an unusually reasonable infant, and that my voice was seldom heard."

"Then you could not have been born in sin," I say triumphantly, "for you said just now babies cried because they were sinful and of course if they don't cry they can't be sinful; don't you see, sir?"

But Mr. Skipworth does not see; my impudence has at last had the desired effect of making him turn his back upon me, and as he stiffly rises I make my escape, barely in time, though, for I am scarcely hidden when the governor appears round the corner, looking red and heated, and as though the fry had led him a chase for which there will be a heavy reckoning to pay by-and-by.

is five o'clock in the morning. Through my open window come the pure notes of the lark's first song, the Cloth of Gold roses nod their creamy heads in at me, heavy with dew-drops, and whisper, "Come out! come out!" Yes, but surely they don't mean to say, "Come out and see a pig killed!" My mind has somehow or other made itself up, and though I every moment expect to hear Jack's footfall below, I am attired in a nightgown, no more. Who that has tasted the first spotless freshness of the early morning could go back to dull, senseless sleep in that white bed, yonder? When Jack is gone I will dress and go out into the lanes and fields, and get a bunch of fresh wild flowers. I willthere is Jack. I mount the window and present my white-robed form to his astonished and disgusted gaze.