Part 19 (1/2)

”What other?” grumbled Hugh John, sulking. He felt that Cissy was taking an unfair advantage.

”Oh, _you_ know,” said Cissy, ”what I did to you a little while ago.”

”'Twasn't to be till after,” urged our hero, half relenting. Like a woman, Cissy was quick to see her advantage.

”Just a little one to be going on with?” she pleaded.

Hugh John sighed. Girls were incomprehensible. Prissy liked church and being washed. Cissy, of whom he had more hopes, liked kissing.

”Well,” he said, ”goodness knows why you like it. I'm sure I don't and never shall. But--”

He ran to the corner and looked round into the stable-yard. All was quiet along the Potomac. He walked more sternly to the other corner, and glanced into the orchard. Peace reigned among the apple-trees. He came slowly and dejectedly back. In the inmost corner of the angle of the stable, and behind the thickest of the ivy bush, he straightened himself up and compressed his lips, as he had done when the Smoutchies were tying him up by the thumbs. He felt however that to beat Nipper Donnan he was ready to undergo anything--even this. No sacrifice was too great.

”All right,” he said. ”Come on, Cissy, and get it over--only don't be too long.”

Cissy was thirteen, and tall for her age, but though fully a year younger, Hugh John was tall also, so that when she came joyously forward and put her hands on his shoulders, their eyes were exactly on a level.

”You needn't go shutting your eyes and holding your breath, as if it were medicine. 'Tisn't so very horrid,” said Cissy, with her hands still on his shoulder.

”Go on!” said Hugh John in a m.u.f.fled voice, nerving himself for the coming crisis.

Cissy's lips just touched his, rested a moment, and were gone.

Hugh John let out his breath with a sigh of relief like an explosion; then he stepped back, and promptly wiped off love's gage with the sleeve of his coat.

”Hold on,” cried Cissy; ”that isn't fair. You know it ain't!”

Hugh John knew it and submitted.

Cissy swept the tumbled hair from about her eyes. She had a very red spot on either cheek; but she had made up her mind, and was going through with it properly now.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”'WASN'T IT SPLENDID?'”]

”Oh, I don't mind,” she said; ”I can easily do it over again--for keeps this time, mind!”

Then she kissed him once, twice, and three times. It was nicer than kissing Janet Sheepshanks, he thought; and as for Prissy--well, that was different too.

A little hammer thumped in his heart, and made it go ”jumpetty-jump,”

as if it were lame, or out of breath, or had one leg shorter than the other. After all Ciss was the nicest girl there was, if she did behave stupidly and tiresomely about this. ”Just once?” He would do it after all. It wasn't much to do--to give Cissy such a treat.

So he put his arms about her neck underneath her curls, pulled her close up to him, and kissed her. It felt funny, but rather nice. He did not remember doing that to any one since he was a little boy, and his mother used to come and say ”Good-night” to him. Then he opened his arms and pushed Cissy away. They walked out through the orchard yards apart, as if they had just been introduced. Cissy's eyes were full of the happiness of love's achievement. As for Hugh John, he was crimson to the neck and felt infinitely degraded in his own estimation.

They came to the orchard wall, where there was a stile which led in the direction of Oaklands. Cissy ran up the rude steps, but paused on the top instead of going over. Hugh John was looking the other way.

Somehow, do what he would, his eyes could not be brought to meet hers.

”Are you not coming?” she said coaxingly.

”No,” he answered, gruffly enough; ”to-morrow will do for Billy.”