ckled.

"Pretty nice?" Johnny said, in a low voice; and Edith, all her
grumpiness flown, said:

"You bet it is!" Then, as an afterthought, she called back, "But Eleanor
is the limit!"

Johnny, forgetting his gratitude to Eleanor, said, savagely: "_Keep
quiet!_ You scared him off! Gosh! girls are awful."

So Edith kept quiet, and he wandered up the stream, and she wandered
down the stream, and they fished, and they fished--and they never caught
a thing.

"I had _one_ bite," Johnny said when, at about eleven, fiercely hungry,
they met on the bank where they had left their lunch basket; "but you
burst out about Eleanor, and drove him off. Girls simply _can't_ fish."

Edith was contrite--but doubted the bite. Then they sat down on a mossy
rock, and ate stacks of sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, and watched the
water, and talked, talked, talked. At least Edith talked--mostly about
Maurice. Johnny lit his pipe, puffed once or twice, then let it go out
and sat staring into the green wall of the woods on the other side of
the brook. Then, suddenly, quietly, he began to speak....

"I want to say something."

"The mosquitoes here are awful!" Edith said, nervously; "don't you think
we'd better go home?"

"Look here, Edith; you've got to be half decent to me--unless, of
course, you've soured on me? If you have, I'll shut up."

"Johnny, don't be an idiot! 'Course I haven't soured on you. You're the
oldest friend I've got. Older than Maurice, even."

"Well, I guess I am an older friend than Maurice! But lately you've
treated me like a dog. You skulk round to keep from being by ourselves.
You never give me a chance to open my head to you--"

"Johnny, that's perfectly absurd! I've had to look after Eleanor--"

"Eleanor _nothing_! It's me you want to shake."

"I do _not_ want to shake you! I'm just busy."

"Edith, I care a lot about you. I don't care much for girls, as a rule.
But you're not girly. And every time I try to talk to you, you sidestep
me."

"Now, Johnny--"

"But I'm going to tell you, all the same." He made a clutch at the
sopping-wet hem of her skirt. "I _will_ say it! I care an awful lot
about you. I'm not a boy. I want to marry you."

There was a dead silence; then Edith said, despairingly, "Oh, Johnny,
how perfectly horrid you are!" He gasped. "You simply spoil everything
with this sort of ... of ... of talk."

"You mean you don't like me?" His face twitched.

"Like you? I like you awfully! Tha