norance did not admit of any
enlightenment. "They just--come," she explained vaguely.

The Junior Fourth class was being called forward and there was no more
opportunity for explanations. But, as they passed up the aisle,
Elizabeth noticed Rosie flirt her curls and glance towards Hector
McQueen's seat, and Hector's admiring eyes followed Rosie all the way
to her class. "Is yours Hector McQueen?" Elizabeth whispered as soon
as they reached their scat again, and Rosie nodded radiantly.
Elizabeth was both proud and pleased. She did not know much about
boys, apart from John and Malcolm and the Pretender. All outside this
list were classed in her mind as "other boys," and were an unknown
waste. But Hector McQueen, everybody knew, was quite the nicest boy in
school. It was just like Rosie to carry off the prize.

As the days went on, Elizabeth, now fully awake to the fashion of the
hour, noticed that Rosie had been quite right--"all the girls" had
beaux. Even big, untidy Becky Davis was receiving attentions from Noah
Clegg, Junior. She furthermore discovered that your beau brought you
apples and butter-nuts to school. That you trimmed his hat with
colored maple leaves at recess, and always chose him as your partner in
games; that he wrote you notes in school, when Miss Hillary was
answering her Wednesday letter, and you wrote back; and, above all,
that the other girls wrote your name and his side-by-side on a slate,
struck out all the common letters, and over the remainder chanted,
"Friendship, Love, Hatred, Marriage." If the result on both sides was
satisfactory, there was nothing more to be desired.

Elizabeth noticed all this commotion and felt rather forlorn.
Personally she would have preferred very much not to have a beau. It
was something quite unnecessary; but then one hated to be different,
and she was the only girl in her class, except Eppie Turner, who was
too shy to speak to a boy, who was in a beauless state. Rosie, in her
loyalty, felt Elizabeth's undesirable condition and strove to better it.

"I'll tell you, Lizzie," she advised one day. "You pick out a boy and
I'll cancel your names and then you can have him for your fellow."

Elizabeth looked about her reluctantly. This was a most distasteful
task. Yet, when pickles were the fad, though green cucumbers made her
deadly sick, she had always had one in her desk; so surely a beau could
not be worse. Rosie followed her eyes trying to assist.