The Lilac Sunbonnet - Page 111/206

But he could not see, and in a moment the chances were past.

"Not only to see your grandmother, who has been very kind to me, but also to see you, who have not been at all kind to me," answered Ralph.

"And pray, Master Ralph Peden, how have I not been kind to you?" said Winsome with dignity, giving him the full benefit of a pair of apparently reproachful eyes across the fir-branch.

Now Ralph had strange impulses, and, like Winsome, certainly did not talk by rule.

"I do wish," he said complainingly, with his head a little to one side, "that you would only look at me with one eye at a time. Two like that are too much for a man."

This is that same Ralph Peden whose opinions on woman were written in a lost note-book which at this present moment is--we shall not say where.