t he was bound to be agreeable until he got something off
his mind.

"Well, you know--when I'm done going to college, and we've grown up
we'll have to get married, you and me. Long Pete Fowler said so."

Elizabeth did not look at all impressed. Such a proposition did not
appeal to her. It was too vague and intangible. People all got
married, of course, some day, but not until you were very, very old and
staid, and all the joy of life had departed from it--just as everybody
died some day. But, though death was inevitable, Elizabeth did not
borrow trouble from that solemn fact. Besides, she had far other and
greater ambitions than were dreamed of in Charles Stuart's philosophy.
She was going to be grand and famous some day--just how, Elizabeth had
not yet decided. One day she would be a great artist, the next a
missionary in darkest Africa. But Joan of Arc's life appealed to her
most strongly, and oftenest her dreams pictured herself clad in
flashing armor, mounted on a prancing charger, and leading an army of
brave Canadians to trample right over the United States.

So there was nothing very alluring in the prospect of exchanging all
this to settle down with Charles Stuart, even though one would be
living with dear Mother MacAllister, with whom one was always happy.
She looked at Charles Stuart, about to speak out her disdain, when the
expression of his face suddenly checked her. Even as a child Elizabeth
had a marvelous intuition, which told her when another's feelings were
in danger of being hurt. It gave her a strange, quite unacknowledged
feeling that she was far older and wiser than the children she played
with. There was always an inner self sitting in judgment on all
childishness, even when she was on the highroad to every sort of
nonsense by way of the wild streak.

That inner self spoke now. It said that Charles Stuart was very young
and silly, but he was also very nervous, and she must not hurt him.
She must pretend that she thought him very wise. It would not be very
wicked, for was she not always pretending? When Jamie said, "Be a
bear, Diddy," or "Be a bogey-man," Elizabeth would go down on her knees
and growl and roar, or pull her hair over her face, make goggle-eyes,
and hop madly about until the little brother was screaming with
ecstatic terror. So when Charles Stuart said, "We'll get married," it
required less effort to comply than to be a bogey-man, and she nodded
radiantly, and said,