And Godfrey laughed heartily at himself, while Gertie, too, joined in the laugh, and thought how handsome he was, and what white, even teeth he had, and hoped he was not angry with her. So when he said to her next: “Gertie, if I really try to reform and quit my slang, will you promise to like me a little?” she answered quickly: “Yes, and I like you now,—some, you know,—though I did not like you to stare at me so when I was in the cab at Mrs. Barrett’s gate; but when I saw you in church at the wedding, I thought you very nice, and kept on thinking so until you kissed me, when I was very angry; but I’m over it now, and you’ll never kiss me again.” That was a fixed fact in her mind, but Godfrey was not so sure of it, and he said to her seriously: “Gertie, I am sure you are very good and generous, and I really mean to reform, and I want you to promise me one thing. You are going to Hampstead, I believe?” Yes, Gertie supposed she was, “but,” she added, “I shall not see you, of course.” “Why not?” he asked, and she replied: “Why, don’t you know? You are rich and we are poor. You live in the great house, and we are your tenants; that is, I believe auntie is to rent a cottage of your father, if it is not too high. We cannot give much, for auntie lost her shares in the bank last summer, and now she must do fluting and clear-starching and sewing for our living, as she will not touch my forty pounds; that she says is for my education, and I do so want to learn music. We can live on most nothing, only the rent takes money. Will it be very much?” “No, not much,” Godfrey replied, a sudden thought flashing into his mind upon which he resolved to act, but not till he had made his compact with Gertie. “You did not let me finish,” he said; “I want to make a bargain with you, which is this: I am to reform, and you are to tell me from time to time if I am improving, and when you really think I am a perfect gentleman, you are to let me kiss you again. Is it a fair bargain?” Gertie considered a moment, and then said, with the utmost gravity: “Ye-es,—I don’t believe there would be any harm in it, inasmuch as you did it for pay.” “Then it is a bargain, and I begin from this minute to be a gentleman,” Godfrey cried, but his zeal was a little dampened by Gertie’s next remark. “It may be a long time, Mr. Godfrey, and I’ll be grown up, and then it would not be proper at all.” Here Robert Macpherson burst into a loud laugh and exclaimed: “Better give it up, Schuyler; the child is too much for you.” But Godfrey was not inclined to give it up, and said: “A bargain is a bargain, Miss Gertie, and I shall claim my reward if it is not until you are a hundred. How old are you, little one?” “Twelve going on thirteen. How old are you?”