"Hope, Anthony - Frivolous Cupid" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hope Anthony)

suddenly broke out:

"How--how funny it is! I hardly remembered you, you know."

"Oh, but I remembered you, a pretty little boy;" and she looked
up at his face, half a foot above her. Mere stature has much
effect and the little boy stage seemed very far away. And he
knew that it did, for he put out his hand to take hers. She drew
back.

"No," she said.

Harry blushed. She took hold of the gate and he, yielding his
place, let her pass through. For a minute or two they walked on
in silence.

"Oh, how silly you are!" she cried then, beginning with a laugh
and ending with a strange catch in her throat. "Why, you're
only just out of knickerbockers!"

"I don't care, I don't care, Hilda----"

"Hush, hush! Oh, indeed, you must be quiet! See, we are nearly
home."

He seized her hand, not to be quelled this time, and, bending low
over it, kissed it. She did not draw it away, but watched him
with a curious, pained smile. He looked up in her face, his own
glowing with excitement. He righted himself to his full stature
and, from that stooping, kissed her on the lips.

"Oh, you silly boy!" she moaned, and found herself alone in the
meadow. He had gone swiftly back by the way they had come, and
she went on to her home.

"Well, the boy saw you home?" asked Mr. Mortimer when he arrived
half an hour later.

"Yes," she said, raising her head from the cushions of the sofa
on which he found her lying.

"I supposed so, but he didn't come into the smoking-room when he
got back. Went straight to bed, I expect. He's a nice-mannered
young fellow, isn't he?"

"Oh, very!" said Mrs. Mortimer.