"Say, don't now, Ciss! Stop it, or you'll make me cry too!"
"You don't care! You don't love me a bit! You know you don't!"
"I do--I do," protested the hero, in despair, "there--there--_now_ you can't say I don't care."
"But you'll be so different when you come back, and you'll have lost your half of the crooked sixpence."
"I won't, for true, Cissy--and I shan't ever look at another girl nor play horses with them even if they ask me ever so."
A rumble of wheels, a shout from the front door--"Hugh John--wherever can that boy have got to?"
"Good-bye, Ciss, I must go. Oh hang it, don't go making a fellow cry. Well, I _will_ say it then, 'I love you, Ciss!' There--will that satisfy you?"
[Illustration: "A SLIM BUNDLE OF LIMP WOE."]
Something lit on the end of Cissy's nose, which was very red and wet with the tears that had run down it. There was a clatter of feet, and the Lord of Creation had departed. Cissy sank down behind the stone wall, a slim bundle of limp woe, done up in blue serge trimmed with scarlet.
The servants were gathered in the hall. Several of the maids were already wet-eyed, for Hugh John had "the way with him" that made all women want to "mother" him. Besides, he had no mother of his own.
"Good-bye, Master Hugh!" they said, and sniffed as they said it.
"Good-bye, everybody," cried the hero, "soon be back again, you know." He said this very loudly to show that he did not care. He was going down the steps with Prissy's fingers clutched in his, and every one was smiling. All went merry as a marriage bell--never had been seen so jovial a way-going.
"_Ugh--ugh--ugh!_" somebody in the hall suddenly sobbed out from among the white caps of the maids.
"Go upstairs instantly, Jane. Don't disgrace yourself!" cried Janet Sheepshanks sharply, stamping her foot. For the sound of Jane's sudden and shameful collapse sent the other maids' aprons furtively up to their eyes.
And Janet Sheepshanks had no apron. Not that she needed one--of course not.
"Come on, Hugh John--the time is up!" said his father from the side of the dog-cart, where (somewhat ostentatiously) he had been refastening straps which Mike had already done to a nicety.
At this moment Toady Lion passed with half a dozen lettuce leaves. He was no more excited "than nothing at all," as Prissy indignantly said afterwards.
