you, I suppose. One gets so, after eight or nine
years of growing up together." And, in that one sentence, Catie showed
the practical maturity of her grasp on life and on Scott Brenton.

Half way to the distant schoolhouse, she spoke again, this time more
tactfully.

"Never mind the spat, Scott. That's over and done with, even if you
were horrid," she told him. "But really, now we're growing up, we ought
to think things over and decide things." And, despite her short frocks
and her childish face, her words held a curious accent of mature
decision.

"What sort of things?"

"The things you are going to do, when you grow up."

"I have decided, I tell you," he said stubbornly.

"To be a country parson, all your days?" she queried flippantly.

"To be a minister, yes. Not a country one, though."

"Oh." She pondered. "What then?"

He looked over her head, not so much in disdain as in search of a more
distant vista.

"In a city church, of course, a great stone church with towers and
chimes and arches, and crowded full of people, and with their horses
and carriages waiting at the doors," he answered, he who had never
trodden a paved street in all his life.

"Oh!" But, this time, the monosyllable was breathy, and not sharp.

"Yes, and there will be a choir as good as those people who sang at the
town hall, last Thanksgiving, and flowers, lots of them, roses in
winter, even," he went on eagerly. "And you can hear a pin drop while I
am preaching, only once in a while somebody will sob a little in the
pauses, and then put in a roll of hundred-dollar bills when the
contribution box comes round."

Catie drew another long breath, and her eyes sparkled.

"Lovely!" she said, and she stretched out the word to its full length
by way of expressing her contentment. "And where'll I be?"

Scott withdrew his eyes from distant space and gazed upon her blankly.

"I hadn't thought about that," he said.

Then, for an instant, the glory of his dream was shattered.

"Pig!" Catie said concisely.

However, it was not within the limits of her curiosity to drop the
prediction at this piquant point. The framing of the picture, for so
she regarded it, had pleased her. Scott failing, she must fill in the
portrait to suit herself.

"I'll tell you, then. I shall be there, in the very front seat, dressed
in flowing curls," Catie's hair, at this epoch, was pokery in its stiff
straightness; "and a real lace dress. And, after service, al