in fixing
Elizabeth's attention upon himself once more, desisted, and cast his
last stone with a crash into the raspberry bushes by the roadside.

"Ain't you goin' to read it?" he asked, with his back towards her.

"Read what, the candy?"

"O' course."

Elizabeth paused and rummaged in her pinafore. She bundled shoes and
stockings aside and fished out the little pink tablet. The legend,
inscribed in red letters, was, "Be my girl." She read it aloud quite
impersonally. She did not object to it, for fear of hurting Charles
Stuart's feelings; but she wished that it had been, "Be my boy,"
instead. It would have been so appropriate for Jamie. For every day
she bribed and coaxed him to be "Diddy's boy," in preference to Mary's
or Jean's or even Annie's.

Charles Stuart waited for some comment, feeling that Elizabeth was
certainly very dull. No wonder she could never get a sum right at
school, and was always foot of the spelling class. He flung another
stone to relieve his feelings; this time in the direction of a pair of
chiming bob-o'-links that, far over the clover-meadow, went up and down
in an airy dance. He felt he must put forth another effort to make his
position clear to Elizabeth's dull wits.

"Say, Lizzie, did anybody ever--ever see you home before?"

Elizabeth stared. Surely Charles Stuart must be wandering in his mind,
for how could he help knowing that his mother or father or Long Pete
Fowler, the hired man, often accompanied indeed by Charles Stuart
himself, had always, heretofore, seen her home?

"Of course," she answered wonderingly. "But I'm a big girl now, I'm
going on eleven, and I'm too old to have anybody see me home."

This was worse than ever. Charles Stuart looked at her in perplexity.
Then he came straight to the point in the wise old way.

"Say, Lizzie, I think you're the nicest girl in all Forest Glen School."

Elizabeth stared again; not so much at the remark, though it was
extremely absurd, for Charles Stuart hated all girls, as at his
uncomfortable subdued manner, which she now began to notice. She felt
vaguely sorry for him. Charles Stuart never acted like that unless his
father had been giving him a scolding. Her sympathy made her
responsive.

"Do you?" she cried. "Oh, I'm so glad, Charles Stuart."

This was making fine progress. The young man looked vastly encouraged.

"I'm going away to the High School, in Cheemaun, if I pass next
summer," he said, with not