“I think she hardly could,” returned the boy, with a troubled smile; “we have known each other all our lives.” “Well, here she comes, and I’ll do as I would be done by, and make myself scarce. That’s a Christian maxim, anyway.” Louis turned quickly to meet his friend, with an eager face. “I could not come,” he said, “I was kept—but you have it? he gave it to you?” Pinkie glanced down at a tile she carried in her hand. “Yes, he gave it to me,” she said. “But I want to ask you, Pinkie—oh! I ought to say Miss Rose, but I’ve called you Pinkie all my life;—she says, Miss Dare says, that your father will take you to Paris to get you away from _me_. Pinkie, do you want to go?” “That’s all Virgie’s nonsense,” said Pinkie decidedly; “he’d better not play stern parent, and he knows it. Yes, Louis, I do want to go; to see the ocean, and Paris, and all. Of course I want to go.” “If you would enjoy it,” said Louis reluctantly, “we would try to bear it, Freddy and I. But we should miss you, Pinkie, _liebes Herz_,” he added tenderly. “Well, you know I’d be back in two years,” said Pinkie, blushing slightly, though really it was hardly worth while to blush for Louis; a mere child, and a shoemaker at that. “If your father wants to get you away from me,” said Louis, “it may be two years or ten. Will he like you to have my picture, Pinkie?” “He _ought_ to,” said that young lady, a mischievous dimple showing itself at the corner of her rosy mouth. “It’s in Freddy’s best manner, tender, individual, and American, _very_ American.” Louis smiled, though he would rather have seen Pinkie more respectful to her genial papa; but he had not been acquainted with that young lady for twelve long years without having learned the futility of remonstrance. His arm was around her by this time, and he was stroking back the rough, brown curls from her brow. It was much such a caress as Freddy might have bestowed; for, as Henry Randolph had said, they were both mere children. “And did the slippers fit?” he said. “Annie Rolf painted them; but not half well enough for you, _mein Röslein roth_.” Pinkie drew away from him rather abruptly. “Were he a dairyman, he’d woo thee with pats of butter,” said Virginia’s voice in her ear. Pinkie hated herself for the thought; and she loved Louis as well as at that stage of her development she was capable of loving; but she drew away from him notwithstanding. “They are pretty enough for a queen,” she said; “and your father always fits me; or did you make them all yourself? But you know, Louis, I told you, we are not children now, and”— “It is your birthday,” said Louis, “and you will be far away on mine, perhaps. You might kiss me for my birthday, Pinkie, and another for our good-by. I do love you so very dearly.”