“It isn’t his lack of nonsense,” Polly smiled. “He is too pretty. That combined with his name—but he can’t help either, poor boy! Anyway, he looks like a nice baby—”
“Baby!” sniffed David.
“Well, he does. With his round face and rosy cheeks and curly hair—honestly, I always want to take him on my knee and trot him.”
David laughed, though as if against his will.
“There’s nothing of the baby about him,” he asserted, “and a fellow can’t help his looks.”
Polly shook her head. “No,” she agreed. “If only he and his sister could exchange faces! Maybe, after all, it is she that flavors my opinion of him.”
“Marietta?”
“Yes.” She was making little jabs in the soft moss with her slender forefinger, and a faint smile began to curve her lips.
“She is a brainy girl,” was the somewhat stiff response, “and she has always been very pleasant to me.”
“She is brainy enough,” replied Polly; “the trouble is, she knows it and she shows that she knows it.”