The
journey was as brief as delightful. I ran home feeling like the
heroine of an elopement, asking myself meanwhile, "What would my
brother John say if he knew I had been playing with boys?" He was
very particular about his sisters' behavior. But I incautiously
said to one sister in whom I did not usually confide, that I
thought James was the nicest boy in the lane, and that I liked
his little brother Charles, too. She laughed at me so
unmercifully for making the remark, that I never dared look
towards the gap in the fence again, beyond which I could hear the
boys' voices around the old sleigh where they were playing,
entirely forgetful of their former traveling companion. Still, I
continued to think that my courteous cavalier, James, was the
nicest boy in the lane.
My brother's vigilant care of his two youngest sisters was once
the occasion to them of a serious fright. My grandfather--the
sexton--sometimes trusted him to toll the bell for a funeral. In
those days the bell was tolled for everybody who died.
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