"Nothing to do with gunpowder, I hope," said Emily with her usual
_insouciance_.
"There are the girls; I hear them coming in the carriage," exclaimed
Johnnie by way of answer, while Emily was placing the shells on a table.
"No, father didn't send me; he doesn't know."
"What is it, then?" she repeated, feeling more at liberty to investigate
the matter, now she had been expressly told that John had nothing to do
with it.
On this, instead of making a direct reply, he exclaimed, looking very
red and indignant, "I told them it was no use at all my coming, and now
you see it isn't. They thaid they wouldn't come unless I did. If you
thought I should be rude, you might make me stop at school all the
holidays, or at old Tikey's; I shouldn't thay a word."
Emily's hand was on the boy's shoulder as he knelt before the case.
Surely she understood what he meant; but if so, where could he possibly
have acquired the knowledge he seemed to possess? And even then he was
the last person from whom she could have expected this blunt,
embarrassed, promise of fealty.
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