"Is this an ingenious little game set up between you and John ?" To his utter amazement she began to cry.
"By George!" he said, "don't cry," which is what a kind man always says when presented with the riddle of tears.
She drew a brown fist across her wet cheeks and said indignantly, "My cousin is a gentleman." She turned to go by him.

"No, dear, wait a moment." He held her arm.
"Please, let me go.

When John first came, you said he was a prig--and if he would just do some boy-mischief and kick up his heels like a two-year-old with some fun in him--you said he was a sort of girl-boy--" There were for punctuation sobs and silences.
"And where did you get all this about a prig ?" he broke in, amazed.
"Oh, I heard you tell Aunt Ann.

And now," said Portia, "the first time he does a real nice jolly piece of mischief you come down on him like--like a thousand of bricks." Her slang was reserved for the Squire, as he well knew.
The blue eyes shining with tears looked up from under the glorious disorder of the mass of hair.

It was too much for the man.
"How darned logical you are!" He acknowledged some consciousness of having been inconsistent.