“Open the door and see,” and he laughed a little nervously.
Frances drew her gown closer about her throat, and turned the knob. Instantly a great bunch of fragrant little blossoms–the wild-flowers so hard to find on the plains and in the foothills–were thrust into her hands.
“Oh, Pratt!” shrieked the girl in delight.
She clasped the blossoms to her bosom; she buried her face in them. Pratt watched her with smiling lips, and wonderingly.
How pretty and girlish she was! The grown-up air that responsibilities had lent her fell away like a cloak. She was just a simple, enthusiastic, delighted girl, after all!
“Like them?” asked the young man, laconically.
“I love them!” Frances declared.
Pratt was thinking how wonderful it was that a girl could seize a big bunch of posies like that, and hug them, and press them to her face, and still not crush the fragile things.
“Why,” he thought, “I’ve had to handle them like eggs all the way here, to keep from spoiling them beyond repair. Aren’t girls wonders?”
You see, Pratt Sanderson was beginning to be interested in the mysteries of the opposite sex.