"You needn't be afraid of me," continued Louise. "I'm very fond of
boys, and you must be nearly my own age."
Still no reply.
"I suppose you don't know much of girls and are rather shy," she
persisted. "But I want to be friendly and I hope you'll let me.
There's so much about this interesting old place that you can tell me,
having lived here so many years. Come, I'll sit beside you on this
bench, and we'll have a good talk together."
"Go away!" cried the boy, hoarsely, raising his hands as if to ward
off her approach.
Louise looked surprised and pained.
"Why, we are almost cousins," she said. "Cannot we become friends and
comrades?"
With a sudden bound he dashed her aside, so rudely that she almost
fell, and an instant later he had left the summer house and disappear
among the hedges.
Louise laughed at her own discomfiture and gave up the attempt to make
the boy's acquaintance.
"He's a regular savage," she told Beth, afterward, "and a little
crazy, too, I suspect."
"Never mind," said Beth, philosophically. "He's only a boy, and
doesn't amount to anything, anyway. After Aunt Jane dies he will
probably go somewhere else to live.
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