"O Sammy! why didn't you come?" she cried. "I didn't like," said Sammy. "I've been waiting for hours," Beth expostulated with gentle reproach. "So have I, and it's cold," said Sammy disconsolately. "Come now. She's out," Beth coaxed. "So she was the other day," Sammy reminded her. "But we'll go into the garden. She can't catch us there. It's too dark." Sammy, half persuaded, ventured out from the gateway, then hesitated. "But is it _very_ dark?" he said. "Not so very, when you're used to it," Beth answered. "But it's nice when it's dark. You can fancy you see things. Come! run!" She seized his hand as she spoke, and set off, and Sammy, overborne by the stronger will, kept pace with her. "But I don't want to see things," he protested, trying to hold back when they came to the dark passage which led into the garden. "Don't be a fool, Sammy," said Beth, dragging him on. "I believe you're a girl." "I'm not," said Sammy indignantly. "Then come and sit on the see-saw." "Oh, have you a see-saw?" he asked, immediately diverted. "Yes--this way--under the pear-tree. It's a swing, you know, tied to the branch, and I put this board across it. I pulled the board up out of the floor of the wood-house. Do you like see-sawing?" "Yes," said Sammy with animation. "Catch hold, then," said Beth, tipping up the board at her end. "What are you doing, butter-fingers?" she cried, as Sammy failed to catch hold. "I'm sorry I said you were a girl. You're much too clumsy." She held the board until Sammy got astride of it at one end, then she bestrode it herself at the other, and started it with a vigorous kick on the ground. Up and down they went, shaking showers of leaves from the old tree, and an occasional winter pear, which fell with a thud, being hard and heavy. "Golly! this is fine!" Sammy burst out. "I say, Beth, what a jolly sort of a girl you are!" "Do you think so?" said Beth, amply rewarded for all her trouble. "Yes. And you _can_ write a letter! My! What a time it must 'a' took you! But, I say, it's all rot about stops, you know. Stops is things in books. _You'd_ never learn stops." "How do you know?" Beth demanded, bridling. "Men write books," said Sammy, proud of his sex, "not women, let alone gels!" "That's all you know about it, then!" cried Beth, better informed. "Women _do_ write books, and girls too. Jane Austen wrote books, and Maria Edgeworth wrote books, and Fanny Burney wrote a book when she was only seventeen, called 'Evelina' and all the great men read it." "Oh!" said Sammy, jeering, "so you're as clever as they are, I suppose!" Sammy was up in the air as he spoke; the next moment he came down bump on the ground. "There," said Beth, "that'll teach you. You be rude again if you dare." "I'll not come near you again, spit-cat," cried Sammy, picking himself up. "I know you won't," Beth rejoined. "You daren't. You're afraid." "Who's afraid?" said Sammy, blustering.