She lifted her hands and rested them
on his shoulders, as she had always done when inviting him to toss her
above his head.
"If I am prettier--and you like me this way--why don't you--"
She finished with a sweet, upturned pouting of her mouth, and, with a
sudden, laughing cry, Jan caught her in his arms and kissed the lips
she held up to him. It was but an instant, and he freed her, a hot
blush burning in his brown cheeks.
"My dear brother!" she laughed at him, gathering up the bakneesh on
the table. "I love to have you kiss me, and now I have to make you do
it. Father kisses me every morning when he goes to the store. I
remember when you used to kiss me every time you came home, but now
you forget to do it at all. Do brothers love their sisters less as
they grow older?"
"Sometimes they love the SISTER less and the OTHER GIRL more, ma belle
Melisse," came a quick voice from the door, and Jean de Gravois
bounded in like a playful cat, scraping and bowing before Melisse
until his head nearly touched the floor. "Lovely saints, Jan Thoreau,
but she IS a woman, just as my Iowaka told me! And the cakes--the
bread--the pies! You must delay the supper my lady, for the good Lord
deliver me if I haven't spilled all the dough on the floor! Swas-s-s-
s-h--such a mess! And my Iowaka did nothing but laugh and call me a
clumsy dear!"
"You're terribly in love, Jean," cried Melisse, laughing until her
eyes were wet; "just like some of the people in the books which Jan
and I read.
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