ently.
"I've been--I've been terribly upset--terribly! You know how I feel
about you, and always have felt about you. I've shown it in every single
thing I've done since the first time I met you, and I know you know it.
Don't you?"

Still she did not move or speak.

"Is the only reason you won't be engaged to me you think I'm too young,
Lucy?"

"It's--it's reason enough," she said faintly.

At that he caught one of her hands, and she turned to him: there were
tears in her eyes, tears which he did not understand at all.

"Lucy, you little dear!" he cried. "I knew you--"

"No, no!" she said, and she pushed him away, withdrawing her hand.
"George, let's not talk of solemn things."

"Solemn things!' Like what?"

"Like--being engaged."

But George had become altogether jubilant, and he laughed triumphantly.
"Good gracious, that isn't solemn!"

"It is, too!" she said, wiping her eyes. "It's too solemn for us."

"No, it isn't! I--"

"Let's sit down and be sensible, dear," she said. "You sit over there--"

"I will if you'll call me, 'dear' again."

"No," she said. "I'll only call you that once again this summer--the
night before you go away."

"That will have to do, then," he laughed, "so long as I know we're
engaged."

"But we're not!" she protested. "And we never will be, if you don't
promise not to speak of it again until--until I tell you to!"

"I won't promise that," said the happy George. "I'll only promise not to
speak of it till the next time you call me 'dear'; and you've promised
to call me that the night before I leave for my senior year."

"Oh, but I didn't!" she said earnestly, then hesitated. "Did I?"

"Didn't you?"

"I don't think I meant it," she murmured, her wet lashes flickering
above troubled eyes.

"I know one thing about you," he said gayly, his triumph increasing.
"You never went back on anything you said, yet, and I'm not afraid of
this being the first time!"

"But we mustn't let--" she faltered; then went on tremulously, "George,
we've got on so well together, we won't let this make a difference
between us, will we?" And she joined in his laughter.

"It will all depend on what you tell me the night before I go away. You
agree we're going to settle things then, don't you, Lucy?"

"I don't promise."

"Yes, you do! Don't you?"

"Well--"

Chapter XIII

Tonight George began a jubilant warfare upon his Aunt Fanny, opening
the campaign upon his return home at ab