"What's yours?"

"I haven't one."

"What's your father?"

"He's dead too."

"What was he?"

"He was a gentleman."

"A retired gentleman?"

"No," said Beth, "an officer and a gentleman."

"Oh," said Sammy. "My father's dead too. He was a retired gentleman."

"What's a retired gentleman?" Beth asked.

"Don't you know?" Sammy exclaimed. "I thought everybody knew that!
When you make a fortune you retire from business. Then you're a
retired gentleman."

"But gentlemen don't go into business," Beth objected.

"What do they do then?" Sammy retorted.

"They have professions or property."

"It's all the same," said Sammy.

"It isn't," Beth contradicted.

"Yah! _you_ don't know," said Sammy, laughing; and then he ran on,
being late for his dinner.

The discussion had been carried on with broad smiles, and when he left
her, Beth hugged herself, and glowed again, and was glad in the
thought of him. But it was not his conversation so much as his
appearance that she dwelt upon--his round blue eyes, his bright fair
curly hair, his rosy cheeks. "He is beautiful! he is beautiful!" she
exclaimed; then added upon reflection, "_And I never thought a boy
beautiful before._"

The next day she was making rhymes about him in the acting-room, and
forgot the time, so that she missed him in the morning; but when he
left school in the afternoon she was at the window, and she saw him
trotting up the street as hard as his little legs could carry him.

"Where were you at dinner-time?" he said.

"How funny!" she exclaimed in surprise and delight.

"What's funny?" he demanded, looking about him vaguely.

"You were wanting to see me."

"Who told you so?" Sammy asked suspiciously.

"You did yourself just now," Beth answered, her eyes dancing.

"I didn't."

"You _did_, Sammy."

"You're a liar!" said Sammy Lee.

"Sammy, that's rude," she exclaimed. "And it's not the way to speak to
a young lady, and I won't have it."

"Well, but I did _not_ tell you I wanted to see you at dinner-time,"
Sammy retorted positively.

"Yes, you did, stupid," said Beth. "You asked where I was at
dinner-time, and then I knew you had missed me, and you wouldn't have
missed me if you hadn't wanted to see me."

"But," Sammy repeated with sulky obstinacy, unable to comprehend the
delicate subtilty of Beth's perception,--"But I did not tell you."

"Didn't you want to see me, then?" Beth said coaxingly, waiving the
other point with tact.