this
house. It would mortify me to death."

"What would mortify you to death: to have him make love to you or to
have someone hear me?"

"Betty, dear!"

"Well, tell me all about him--please! Why did he come out with you?"

"You shouldn't always be thinking about love-making--and--such things,
Betty, dear. He just came out in the most natural way, just because
he--he loves the country, and he was talking to me about it one day
and said he'd like to come out some Friday with me--just about asked
me to invite him. So when father called at the school yesterday for
me, I introduced them, and he said the same thing to father, and of
course father invited him over again, and--and--so he's here. That's
all there is to it."

"I bet it isn't. How long have you known him?"

"Why, ever since I've been in the school, naturally."

"What does he teach?"

"He has higher Latin and beginners' Greek, and then he has charge of
the main room when the principal goes out."

Betty pondered a little, sitting on the floor in front of her sister.
"You have such a lovely way of doing your hair. Is that the way to do
hair nowadays--with two long curls hanging down from one side of the
coil? You wind one side around the back knot, and then you pin the
other up and let the ends hang down in two long curls, don't you? I'm
going to try mine that way; may I?"

"Of course, darling! I'll help you."

"What's his name, Martha? I couldn't quite catch it, and I did not
want to let him know I thought it queer, so wouldn't ask over."

"His name is Lucien Thurbyfil. It's not so queer, Betty."

"Oh, you pronounce it T'urbyfil, just as if there were no 'h' in it.
You know I thought father said Mr. Tubfull--or something like that,
when he introduced him to mother, and that was why mother looked at
him in such an odd way."

The two girls laughed merrily. "Betty, what if you hadn't been a dear,
and had called him that! And he's so very correct!"

"Oh, is he? Then I'll try it to-morrow and we'll see what he'll do."

"Don't you dare! I'd be so ashamed I'd sink right through the floor.
He'd think we'd been making fun of him."

"Then I'll wait until we are out in the woods, for I'd hate to have
you make a hole in the floor by sinking through it."

"Betty! You'll be good to-morrow, won't you, dear?"

"Good? Am I not always good? Didn't I scrub and bake and put flowers
all over the ugly what-not in the corner of the parlor, and get the
grease spot