Lucy slipped her arm into Bart's, and asked simply, "What for?" 

 "To finish our talk, of course. Do you suppose I'm going to let that tow-head monopolize you?" he answered, pressing her arm closer to his side with his own. 

 Lucy laughed and tapped Bart with her fan in rebuke, and then there followed a bit of coquetry in which the young girl declared that he was "too mean for anything, and that she'd never seen anybody so conceited, and if he only knew, she might really prefer the 'tow head' to his own;" to which Bart answered that his only excuse was that he was so lonely he was nearly dead, and that he had only come to save his life—the whole affair culminating in his conducting her back to the sofa with a great flourish and again seating himself beside her. 

 "I've been watching you," he began when he had made her comfortable with a small cushion behind her shoulders and another for her pretty feet. "You don't act a bit like Miss Jane." As he spoke he leaned forward and flicked an imaginary something from her bare wrist with that air which always characterized his early approaches to most women. 

 "Why?" Lucy asked, pleased at his attentions and thanking him with a more direct look. 

 "Oh, I don't know. You're more jolly, I think. I don't like girls who turn out to be solemn after you know them a while; I was afraid you might. You know it's a long time since I saw you." 

 "Why, then, sister can't be solemn, for everybody says you and she are great friends," she replied with a light laugh, readjusting the lace of her bodice. 

 "So we are; nobody about here I think as much of as I do of your sister. She's been mighty good to me. But you know what I mean: I mean those don't-touch-me kind of girls who are always thinking you mean a lot of things when you're only trying to be nice and friendly to them. I like to be a brother to a girl and to go sailing with her, and fishing, and not have her bother me about her feet getting a little bit wet, and not scream bloody murder when the boat gives a lurch. That's the kind of girl that's worth having." 

 "And you don't find them?" laughed Lucy, looking at him out of the corners of her eyes. 

 "Well, not many. Do you mind little things like that?" 

 As he spoke his eyes wandered over her bare shoulders until they rested on the blossoms, 

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