"So you're not coming;" he asks in an indignant whisper, heedful of Amberley, whose room is below mine, but reassured by the rhythmic regularity of her snores. "So you're a———"
"Don't be angry," I say, imploringly, "I'm not a coward, and I'll do anything else you like, but I can't do that."
"Oh! I dare say," he says, scornfully, "I dare say! Well, I'm going, but before I go I may as well tell you that I'm disappointed in you. I thought, mind you, Nell, I thought you were plucky enough to be a boy; but I was mistaken, you're only a girl."
"I know I am," I say, almost in tears, "that's just why I can't go and see it—boys feel differently about those things!"
"I should hope so," says Jack, significantly, "I should hope so," and turns on his heel and goes his way, pigsty-wards, leaving me to the miserable conviction that he is perfectly right, and I am a very small and cowardly person indeed.
By-and-by I pluck up sufficient spirit to put on the despised female garments that I hate so thoroughly. How cumbrous, and useless, and ridiculous they are! how my gowns, petticoats, crinoline, ribbons, ties, cloaks, hats, bonnets, gloves, tapes, hooks, eyes, buttons, and the hundred and one et ceteras that make up a girl's costume, chafe and irritate me! what would I not give to be able to leave them all in a heap, and step into Jack's cool, comfortable, easy, grey garments? When I am dressed I go through Alice and Milly's room on tip-toe. A sunbeam is lying on Alice's nut brown head; a blackbird is singing on the window-sill, but she sleeps soundly on. Out in the garden the grass is all silvered over with dew, and the flowers are opening their beautiful eyes one by one; all night they have stood pale and still, but now, with the first quivering beams of the sun, they have awakened, and stirred, and trembled, turning eagerly towards their king, who is rising in such pomp of amber glory out of the great eastern plains of translucent sea-green sky. As yet there is that faint, chilly freshness in the
