"Now I must tell you," said the Aunt, "of the only other time when I ventured to speak to my Little Boy Blue. He had come to his favourite place beside the breakwater. The tide had long ago swept away castle, courtyard, and cannon; but the cannon-ball was still there. It partook of the nature of 'things that remain.' Heavy stones usually do! When I peeped over the breakwater, Little Boy Blue was sitting on the sand. His sturdy legs were spread wide. His bare toes looked like ten little pink sea-shells. Between his small brown knees, he had planted his bucket. His right hand wielded a wooden spade, on the handle of which was writ large, in blue pencil: _Master Guy Chelsea_. He was bent upon filling his bucket with sand. But the spade being long, and the bucket too close to him--(Boy, leave my shoe alone! It does not require attention)--most of the sand missed the bucket, and went over himself. I heard him sigh rather wearily, and say 'Blow!' in a tired little voice. I leaned over the breakwater. 'Little Boy Blue,' I said, 'may I play with you, and help you to fill your bucket with sand?' "Little Boy Blue looked up. His curls, his eyebrows, his long dark eyelashes were full of sand. There was sand on his little straight nose. But no amount of sand could detract from the dignity of his little face, or weaken its stern decision. He laid down his spade, put up a damp little hand, and, lifting his blue cap to me, said: 'Fanks; but I don't like girls.' Oh, Master Guy Chelsea, how you snubbed me!" The Boy's broad shoulders shook with laughter, but he captured the hand still smoothing his hair; and, drawing it down to his lips, kissed it gently, back and palm, and then each finger. "Poor kind-hearted, well-meaning little girl," he said. "But she must admit, little girls of seven are not always attractive to small boys of six." "I was not seven," said the Aunt, with portentous emphasis. "Leave go of my hand, Boy, and listen. _When you were six, I was sixteen_." This bomb of the Aunt's was received with a moment's respectful silence, as befitted the discharge of her principal field-piece. Then the Boy's gay voice said: "And what of that, dear? When I was six, you were sixteen. When I was twenty, you were twenty-nine----" "Thirty, Boy; thirty! Be accurate. And now--you are twenty-six, and I am getting on towards forty----" "Thirty-six, dear, thirty-six! Be accurate!" pleaded the Boy. "And when you are forty, I shall be fifty; and when you are fifty, Boy--only fifty; a man is in his prime at fifty--I shall be sixty."