"Rap on wood--do! How can you boast like that ?" Billy dimpled roguishly and sprang to her feet.
"Why, Aunt Hannah, I'm ashamed of you! To be superstitious like that--you, a good Presbyterian!" Aunt Hannah subsided shamefacedly.
"Yes, I know, Billy, it is silly; but I just can't help it." "Oh, but it's worse than silly, Aunt Hannah," teased Billy, with a remorseless chuckle.

"It's really _heathen!_ Bertram told me once that it dates 'way back to the time of the Druids--appealing to the god of trees, or something like that--when you rap on wood, you know." "Ugh!" shuddered Aunt Hannah.

"As if I would, Billy! How is Bertram, by the by ?" A swift shadow crossed Billy's bright face.
"He's lovely--only his arm." "His arm! But I thought that was better." "Oh, it is," drooped Billy, "but it gets along so slowly, and it frets him dreadfully.

You know he never can do anything with his left hand, he says, and he just hates to have things done for him--though Pete and Dong Ling are quarreling with each other all the time to do things for him, and I'm quarreling with both of them to do them for him myself! By the way, Dong Ling is going to leave us next week.

Did you know it ?" "Dong Ling--leave!" "Yes.