Pinkie looked doubtful for a moment; but her heart was soft and young, and Louis was very handsome. Besides, it suddenly occurred to her that her father would strenuously object to any such proceeding; whereupon the dairyman and his pats of butter vanished from her mind. “Just one, then,” she said with a demure, naughty little smile. Louis was quite equal to the occasion. “One on your lips,” he said, suiting the action to the word in obedience to Shakespeare, “and one on each cheek, my pink rose. And then, your brown eyes are so pretty, you would not have them slighted, I know; and this white forehead was just made to be kissed. But I like the rosy lips best, after all, _allerliebste_,” concluded Louis, with great simplicity. Whereupon Pinkie amazed him by clinging to his neck, which was almost out of her reach, she was such a tiny little thing; and bursting into sudden tears. She was much less simple and innocent than he,—perhaps, under our present system of education, it is impossible for a girl to be thoroughly innocent and perfectly simple,—and, though the word marriage had not been openly named between them, Pinkie knew that Louis looked upon her as his; his so entirely that there was scarcely need to speak of it. Besides, they were too young, every one would laugh at them; but when he should be twenty-one, thought poor Louis— Pinkie loved no one so well, not her father, nor Freddy. She had, in her naughty childhood, always been good with Louis; and his power over her now was almost unlimited when they were together; but yet— She drew away from him again, and dried her eyes. “There’s nothing the matter,” she said in answer to his alarmed inquiries, “only that I am foolish, and that papa will ask why I have been crying. Let me go; I must bathe my eyes before he sees them.” She ran lightly up the stairs, then by a sudden impulse turned, ran down again, and threw her arms about his neck. “I do love you, Louis,” she said; “and I don’t care what they do to me, if they keep me in a cellar on bread and water, with _rats_—yes, Louis, _rats_—running over my feet, I’ll never forget you, never, _never_.” “You couldn’t, Pinkie, _mein Röslein_, nor I you, you could _not_ forget me,” he said as he had answered Virginia, when suddenly Pinkie tore herself away, and vanished like summer lightning. Louis turned to meet the eyes of Dr. Richards. “You are both such children,” said that gentleman, “that it is no use to scold, far less to warn you. But, Louis, did you never hear the story of Cinderella?” “Many a time, sir.”