"I don't know," replied Clover.
"He's such a nice boy, sometimes; but when he isn't nice, he's the horridest boy I ever saw.
I wish you'd talk to him, Katy, and tell him how dreadfully it sounds when he says such things."
"No, indeed!
He'd take it much better from you.
You're nearer his age, and could do it nicely and pleasantly, and not make him feel as if he were being scolded.
Poor fellow, he gets plenty of that!"
Clover said no more about the subject, but she meditated.
She had a good deal of tact for so young a girl, and took care to get Clarence into a specially amicable mood before she began her lecture.
"Look here, you bad boy, how could you tease poor Lilly so yesterday?
Guest, speak up, sir, and tell your massa how naughty it was!"
"Oh, dear! now you're going to nag!" growled Clarence, in an injured voice.
"No, I'm not,—not the least in the world.
I'll promise not to.
But just tell me,"—and Clover put her hand on the rough, red-brown hair, and stroked it,—"just tell me why you 'go for to do' such things?
They're not a bit nice."
"Lilly's so hateful!" grumbled Clarence.
"Well,—she is sometimes, I know," admitted Clover, candidly.
"But because she is hateful is no reason why you should be unmanly."
"Unmanly!" cried Clarence, flushing.
"Yes.
I call it unmanly to tease and quarrel, and contradict like that.
It's like girls. They do it sometimes, but I didn't think a boy would.
I thought he'd be ashamed!"
"Doesn't Dorry ever quarrel or tease?" asked Clarence, who liked to hear about Clover's brothers and sisters.
"Not now, and never in that way. He used to sometimes when he was little, but now he's real nice.
He wouldn't speak to a girl as you speak to Lilly for any thing in the world.
He'd think it wasn't being a gentleman."
"Stuff about gentleman, and all that!" retorted Clarence.
"Mother dings the word in my ears till I hate it!"
"Well, it is rather teasing to be reminded all the time, I admit; but you can't wonder that your mother wants you to be a gentleman, Clarence. It's the best thing in the world, I think.
I hope Phil and Dorry will grow up just like papa, for everybody says he's the most perfect gentleman, and it makes me so proud to hear them."
"But what does it mean any way!
Mother says it's how you hold your fork, and how you chew, and how you put on your hat.
If that's all, I don't think it amounts to much."
"Oh, that isn't all.
It's being gentle, don't you see?
Gentle and nice to everybody, and just as polite to poor people as to rich ones," said Clover, talking fast, in her eagerness to explain her meaning,— "and never being selfish, or noisy, or pushing people out of their place.
Forks, and hats, and all that are only little ways of making one's self more agreeable to other people.
A gentleman is a gentleman inside,—all through!
Oh, I wish I could make you see what I mean!"
"Oh, that's it, is it?" said Clarence.
Whether he understood or not, Clover could not tell; or whether she had done any good or not; but she had the discretion to say no more; and certainly Clarence was not offended, for after that day he grew fonder of her than ever.
Lilly became absolutely jealous.
She had never cared particularly for Clarence's affection, but she did not like to have any one preferred above herself.
"It's pretty hard, I think," she told Clover.
"Clare does every thing you tell him, and he treats me awfully.
It isn't a bit fair!
I'm his sister, and you're only a second cousin."
All this time the girls had seen almost nothing of Louisa Agnew.