“Refuse! ‘Of course!’ Why ‘of course?’”

“I don’t love him.”

“Who do ye love, daughter?”

“You.”

“Uh-huh—ye’d better! Who else?”

“That podheaded little Mart.”

“Who else?”

Silence answered this for a time. “Perhaps you are impertinent, after all,” said Manzanita demurely at last.

“I don’t mean to be. I’m yer pa.”

“I don’t know that I love anybody else—the—the way I guess you mean, pa.”