f that, Sara."

"I should think you'd have to think of it now, with Cyrus Brisk as crazy
after you as he is."

"I wish Cyrus Brisk was at the bottom of the Red Sea," exclaimed Cecily,
goaded into a spurt of temper by mention of the detested name.

"What has Cyrus been doing now?" asked Felicity, coming around the
corner of the hedge.

"Doing NOW! It's ALL the time. He just worries me to death," returned
Cecily angrily. "He keeps writing me letters and putting them in my desk
or in my reader. I never answer one of them, but he keeps on. And in the
last one, mind you, he said he'd do something desperate right off if I
wouldn't promise to marry him when we grew up."

"Just think, Cecily, you've had a proposal already," said Sara Ray in an
awe-struck tone.

"But he hasn't done anything desperate yet, and that was last week,"
commented Felicity, with a toss of her head.

"He sent me a lock of his hair and wanted one of mine in exchange,"
continued Cecily indignantly. "I tell you I sent his back to him pretty
quick."

"Did you never answer any of his letters?" asked Sara Ray.

"No, indeed! I guess not!"

"Do you know," said Felicity, "I believe if you wrote him just once and
told him your exact opinion of him in good plain English it would cure
him of his nonsense."

"I couldn't do that. I haven't enough spunk," confessed Cecily with a
blush. "But I'll tell you what I did do once. He wrote me a long letter
last week. It was just awfully SOFT, and every other word was spelled
wrong. He even spelled baking soda, 'bacon soda!'"

"What on earth had he to say about baking soda in a love-letter?" asked
Felicity.

"Oh, he said his mother sent him to the store for some and he forgot it
because he was thinking about me. Well, I just took his letter and wrote
in all the words, spelled right, above the wrong ones, in red ink, just
as Mr. Perkins makes us do with our dictation exercises, and sent it
back to him. I thought maybe he'd feel insulted and stop writing to me."

"And did he?"

"No, he didn't. It is my opinion you can't insult Cyrus Brisk. He is too
thick-skinned. He wrote another letter, and thanked me for correcting
his mistakes, and said it made him feel glad because it showed I was
beginning to take an interest in him when I wanted him to spell better.
Did you ever? Miss Marwood says it is wrong to hate anyone, but I don't
care, I hate Cyrus Brisk."

"Mrs. Cyrus Brisk WOULD be an awful name," giggled Fel