I never hear you hinting and sneering away any one else's peace of mind; but as for me, I never--_never_ am alone with you that you do not leave me with a pain--a tedious long ache _here_"-- (passionately clasping my hands upon my heart).
"Do not I ?"--( Then half turning away in a lowered voice)--"_nor you me_!" "_I!_" repeat I, positively laughing in my scorn of this accusation.
"_I_ hint! _I_ imply! why, I _could_ not do it, if I were to be shot for it! it is not _in_ me!" He does not immediately answer; still, he is looking aside, and his color changes.
"Ask mother, ask the boys, ask Barbara," cry I, in great excitement, "whether I ever _could_ wrap up any thing neatly, if I wished it ever so much?
Always, _always_, I have to blurt it out! _I_ hint!" "Hint! no!" he repeats, in a tone of vexed bitterness.

"Well, no! no one could accuse you of _hinting_! Yours is honest, open cut and thrust!" "If it is," retort I, bluntly, still speaking with a good deal of heat, "it is your own fault! I have no wish to quarrel, being such near neighbors, and--and--altogether--of course I had rather be on good terms than bad ones! When you _let_ me--when you leave me alone--I _almost_--sometimes I _quite_ like you.

I am speaking seriously! I _do_." "You do not say so ?" again turning his head aside, and speaking with the objectionable intonation of irony.
"At home," pursue I, still chafing under the insult to my amiability, "I never was reckoned quarrelsome--_never_! Of course I was not like Barbara--there are not many like her--but I did very well.

Ask _any one_ of them--it does not matter which--they will all tell you the same--whether I did not!" "You were a household angel, in fact ?" "I was nothing of the kind," cry I, very angry, and yet laughing: the laughter caused by the antagonism of the epithet with the many recollected blows and honest sounding cuffs that I have, on and off, exchanged with Bobby.
A pause.
The sun has quite gone now: sulky and feeble, he has shrunk to his cold bed in the west, and the victor-mist creeps, crawls, and soaks on unopposed.
"Good-night!" cry I, suddenly.

"I am going!" and I am as good as my word.
With the triple agility of health, youth, and indignation, I scurry away through the melancholy grass, and the heaped and fallen leaves, home..