mself dominant, aggressive.

"Because I'd rather preach. It's what all my people have always done."

Then Catie made her blunder.

"What about your father?" she asked, and her voice was taunting.

Scott forgot his holy heritage and turned upon her swiftly.

"Shut up!" he bade her curtly, and her cheek tingled under the blow he
dealt her.

It was the first time in his life that Scott had turned upon her with
decision. Moreover, perchance it would have been better for him, had it
not been the last.

For three days afterward, the subject was as a sealed book between
them. Then Catie broke the seals, and gingerly.

"I have been thinking about your being a minister," she told him, as
she dropped into step beside him, on the way to school. "Of course, you
were very rude to treat me the way you did, the other day; and I hope
you are sorry."

Scott shut his teeth, although he nodded shortly. He had not enjoyed
the three-day frost between himself and Catie; but he was sure that, in
the final end, he had been in the right of it, even if he had been a
little unceremonious in pressing the matter home on her attention.
Moreover, his will had triumphed; Catie had been the one, not he, to
break the silence. The casualness of her "Hullo!" that morning, had not
deceived him in the least. He was perfectly well aware that she had
lain in wait for his passing, her eye glued to the crack of the
front-window curtains. The victory was his. He could afford to yield
the minor point concerning manners, when he stood so firmly entrenched
upon that other point which concerned the ministry.

"Of course," he conceded guardedly; "I know I was beastly when I hit a
girl."

"Yes." Catie's accent was uncompromising. "It was a disgrace to you. I
wonder you can look me in the face. If it had been any other boy, I
never would have spoken to him again as long as I lived."

"Really?" To her extreme disgust, Scott seemed to take her utterances
merely as matter for scientific investigation.

"Of course not," she said impatiently.

"But why?" he asked her.

"Why?" she flashed. "Because he wouldn't deserve to be spoken to, nor
even looked at."

"No; I don't mean that," the boy answered, still with the same apparent
desire to probe the situation to the very bottom. "But why should you
speak to me, and not to him?"

She suspected him of fishing for a sweetie, and, out of sheer
contrariety, she flung him a bit of crust.

"Because I am used to