He grew bolder with amazing rapidity. He seemed to fancy that he could do so with this unsophisticated country girl without being "called down."
"Miss Darling," he murmured, leaning yet nearer to her, and holding her hand with both of his own, "do you believe in love at first sight?"
She giggled again.
"Why, I don't know," she confessed.
"I do," declared Tom. "I did not till I met you, but since that delightful moment I have."
"Oh, rot!" the girl seemed to say.
"Eh?" exclaimed Thornton, in astonishment. "What did you say?"
"I said, 'I think not,'" was the laughing answer. "My cousin has told me all about college fellows, and how they pretend to be all broken up over a girl, but are giving her the dead jolly all the time."
Tom gasped, for the girl rattled off slang as if thor
oughly familiar with it. But this dampened Thornton's ardor for no more than a moment.