Keeping the Faith

"That doesn't speak well for the neighbours. Were they never young themselves?"

"I don't believe so. I've thought, sometimes, that lots of people were born grown-up."

"They say abroad, that there are no children in America--that they are merely little people treated like grown-ups."

"The modern American child is a horror," said Juliet, unconsciously quoting from an article in a recent magazine. "They're ill bred and they don't mind, and there's nobody who wants to make 'em mind except people who have no authority to do it."

"Why is it?" inquired Allison, secretly amused.

"Because spanking has gone out of fashion," she answered, in all seriousness. "It takes so much longer for moral suasion to work. Romie and I never had any 'moral suasion,'--we were brought up right."

Juliet's tone indicated a deep filial respect for her departed parents and there was a faraway look in her blue eyes which filled Allison with tender pity.

"You must be lonely sometimes," he said, kindly.

"Lonely?" repeated Juliet in astonishment; "why, how could I ever be lonely with Romie?"

"Of course you couldn't be lonely when he was there, but you must miss him when he's away from you."

"He's never away," she answered, with a toss of her curly head. "We're most always together, unless he goes to town--or up to your house," she added, as an afterthought.

Allison was about to say that Romeo had never been there before, but wisely kept silent.