"You must
have somebody older than yourself," she admonished, as her chum's eyes
rested fondly on the row of little fellows in Archie's class.
Elizabeth sighed; to have Rosie's little, curly-headed brother Dicky
for one's beau would have been perfectly lovely. She glanced further
down the aisle. Rosie indicated those who were "taken." The rights of
property were strictly observed and there were no flirts in the Forest
Glen School.

Suddenly Rosie exclaimed joyfully: "Why, I know who you'll have,
Lizzie, Charles Stuart MacAllister, of course. Nobody's took him or
your John, but you couldn't have your brother." But Elizabeth shook
her head hopelessly. No, never, never. She would go down to history
as the only unbeaued girl in Forest Glen School forever and ever before
she would have Charles Stuart. Why, she had tried him. Yes, she
really, truly had, long ago last summer. He'd been her beau for most
nearly an hour. But it hadn't worked at all. He had told her she had
green eyes right after she had promised to marry him, and she didn't
like him anyway. Rosie looked disappointed. Couldn't she just cancel
their names anyway? But Elizabeth was obdurate. No, she couldn't.
Besides there was one boy whom she liked just a teenty, weenty bit, if
Rosie would promise really, truly she'd never, never tell. Rosie
snuggled up to her joyfully, making wholesale promises that sure
certain, cross her heart, she'd never think of it again.
Well--Elizabeth made her confession hesitatingly--it was--Charlie
Peters.

Rosie drew back with a gasp of dismay and bit her lip. Now every girl
in Forest Glen School knew that when another girl took her lower lip
between her teeth and looked sideways, girl number one had done or said
something requiring a deadly reproof. Elizabeth was startled. "Why
not?" she asked anxiously.

Rosie looked at her helplessly. Lizzie was so queer about some things.
Poor, dirty Charlie Peters! What in the world had possessed her? He
was a quiet, sickly boy, who came from a place away back in the swamp
where his father worked a portable saw-mill. He was always unkempt and
ragged; his long, straight hair clung round his pale face and his right
sleeve hung empty, his arm having been cut off in the mill when he was
quite little. Elizabeth could not explain the fascination that poor
Charlie's empty sleeve had for her, nor the great compassion his pale
face and his pitiful efforts to write with his left