And then John asked Cynthia if she had seen Sally Hawkes since the husking at their house, when Sally found so many red ears; and didn't she think she was a real pretty girl?
"Yes, she was right pretty;" and Cynthia guessed that Sally knew it pretty well. But did John like the color of her eyes?
No; John didn't like the color of her eyes exactly.
"Her mouth would be well enough if she didn't laugh so much and show her teeth."
John said her mouth was her worst feature.
"Oh no," said Cynthia, warmly; "her mouth is better than her nose."
John didn't know but it was better than her nose, and he should like her looks better if her hair wasn't so dreadful black.
But Cynthia, who could afford to be generous now, said she liked black hair, and she wished hers was dark. Whereupon John protested that he liked light hair—auburn hair—of all things.
And Cynthia said that Sally was a dear, good girl, and she didn't believe one word of the story that she only really found one red ear at the husking that night, and hid that and kept pulling it out as if it were a new one.
And so the conversation, once started, went on as briskly as possible about the paring-bee and the spelling-school, and the new singing-master who was coming, and how Jack Thompson had gone to Northampton to be a clerk in a store, and how Elvira Reddington, in the geography class at school, was asked what was the capital of Massachusetts, and had answered "Northampton," and all the school laughed. John enjoyed the conversation amazingly, and he half wished that he and Cynthia were the whole of the party.