“Beautiful?” incredulously. Then she laughed happily, “Why, I’m not even pretty, Hughie.”
“And what’s more,” he declared, “you’re a wonderful girl—different—a fellow never gets tired of being with you.”
“You are making up to me for what happened to-night! I nearly forget it when you tell me things like that.”
“I didn’t know how much I did care until they hurt you. I could have killed somebody if it wouldn’t have made things worse for you.”
“As much as that?” She looked at him wistfully. “You care as much as that? You see,” she added slowly, “nobody’s ever taken my part except Uncle Joe—not even my mother; and it seems—queer to think that anybody else likes me well enough to fight for me.”
The unconscious pathos went straight to the boy’s chivalrous heart.
“Oh, Honey!” he cried impulsively, and taking her hand in both of his he held it tight against his breast.
Her eyes grew luminous at the word and the caress.
“Honey!” she repeated in a wondering whisper. “I like that.”
Her lids lowered before the new and strange expression in his face.