"Whose?" asked Malcolm, digging away at a capital M.
"Oh, I'll not tell, but I know well enough. There's only one that you could cut, you know."
"You needn't be so sure about that," said Malcolm, loftily. "I know plenty of names that I wouldn't mind cutting here in this tree with mine."
"With a heart around them, like the ones on this tree?" she asked, pointing to a rude carving on the trunk against which she leaned.
"Yes, with a heart around them," he repeated.
"But there's only one name you would carve that way, and put an arrow through it," she said, meaningly. "At any rate, a silver arrow. Oh, maybe you think I haven't seen her wear it, and blush when I teased her about it."
Malcolm went on cutting, without an answer. He had admired Eugenia more than any girl he had ever seen, but somehow this speech jarred on him. It did not seem exactly ladylike for her to insist on twitting him in such a personal way about his friendship for the Little Colonel. She would never have done such a thing, he felt quite sure. For a moment he half wished that it was Lloyd sitting on the rock beside him, but Eugenia could be very entertaining when she chose, and she was trying her best now to make an agreeable impression on this handsome boy who seemed so fond of Lloyd. She wanted to be first in his attentions, and, as usual, she had her way.
"I told you so!" she cried, presently, as a large capital L appeared under Malcolm's initials. "I knew you just couldn't help making an L, and the next one will be an S."
"I'm not done yet," he said, with a smiling side-glance at her, and added two more lines, changing the L to an E. An expression of pleasure flashed across her face, as he outlined an F next to it. It would be something to tell Mollie and Fay and Kell next time she wrote, that the handsomest boy in Kentucky (as she enthusiastically described him to them), with the manners of a Sir Philip Sidney, had left the record of his attachment for her where all might read.
She gave him another smile from under her long black eyelashes, and then looked down with a blush. He added the heart to the inscription then, and pierced it with an arrow.