"I'm Mousie Moore. Dad called me 'Mousie' when I was a baby, 'cause I
was such a wee thing, and they all do. I'm Phœbe really, and sometimes
I'm called 'Fee.' And the boys are Tom and Hugh and Artie. And Bertha
is our baby. How old are you?"
"I'm just eight."
"Is that all?"—in a superior tone. "Why, I'm nine and a quarter. Isn't
it jolly your being here?"
Jock was silent. In the midst of it all he suddenly—remembered. A lump
came into his throat.
The slim-legged maiden studied him closely.
"Never mind," she said consolingly. "'I'll' take care of you."
Jock felt his manliness at stake. To be taken up thus protectingly by a
slip of a girl, smaller than himself, was rather too much.
Mousie came close, and, to his astonishment, imprinted a kind, though
patronizing kiss on his cheek.
Jock promptly scoured it off.
"And we're going to see lots and lots of you," Mousie continued,
undisturbed. "You're going to have lessons with the boys—only not
to-day. And we'll do heaps and heaps of things together. I say—there's
the gong. Hurry." She flung out her little claw-like hands. "Miss
Baynes is most frightfully puncshal. Run—scamper—fly!—don't stop a
moment."
And Jock obediently fled, though he rather resented being ordered about
by so small a person, who wasn't even a boy.