"Now, surely, you do not need to ask me that," he said, looking down at her meaningly, his eyes gazing into the innocent ones in open and intimate admiration. "You must know how beautiful you are!"
With a startled expression, she searched his face, and then, not finding it pleasant, turned away with a look resembling her father in its sternness.
"I don't think that is a nice way for a man to talk to a girl," she said in a displeased tone. "I am too big to be spoken to in that way. I am past sixteen, and shall be done school next year."
He dropped the offending manner at once, and begged her pardon, pleading that her father had talked of her as a child. He asked also that she would let him be her friend, for he felt that they would be congenial, and all the more that she was growing into womanhood.
Her gravity did not relax, however, and her eyes searched his face suspiciously.
"I think we would better go into the house," she said soberly. "Friend Ruth will not like my staying out so long, and I must see my father again."
"But will you be my friend?" he insisted, as they turned their steps toward the house.
"How could we be friends? You are not in the school, and I never go away. Besides, I don't see what would be the use."
"Don't you like me at all?" he asked, putting on the tone which had turned many a girl's head.
"Why, I don't know you even a little bit. How could I like you? Besides, why should I?" answered Dawn frankly.