Suddenly Rosie exclaimed joyfully: "Why, I know who you'll have, Lizzie, Charles Stuart MacAllister, of course. Nobody's took him or your John, but you couldn't have your brother." But Elizabeth shook her head hopelessly. No, never, never. She would go down to history as the only unbeaued girl in Forest Glen School forever and ever before she would have Charles Stuart. Why, she had tried him. Yes, she really, truly had, long ago last summer. He'd been her beau for most nearly an hour. But it hadn't worked at all. He had told her she had green eyes right after she had promised to marry him, and she didn't like him anyway. Rosie looked disappointed. Couldn't she just cancel their names anyway? But Elizabeth was obdurate. No, she couldn't. Besides there was one boy whom she liked just a teenty, weenty bit, if Rosie would promise really, truly she'd never, never tell. Rosie snuggled up to her joyfully, making wholesale promises that sure certain, cross her heart, she'd never think of it again. Well—Elizabeth made her confession hesitatingly—it was—Charlie Peters.
Rosie drew back with a gasp of dismay and bit her lip. Now every girl in Forest Glen School knew that when another girl took her lower lip between her teeth and looked sideways, girl number one had done or said something requiring a deadly reproof. Elizabeth was startled. "Why not?" she asked anxiously.
Rosie looked at her helplessly. Lizzie was so queer about some things. Poor, dirty Charlie Peters! What in the world had possessed her? He was a quiet, sickly boy, who came from a place away back in the swamp where his father worked a portable saw-mill. He was always unkempt and ragged; his long, straight hair clung round his pale face and his right sleeve hung empty, his arm having been cut off in the mill when he was quite little. Elizabeth could not explain the fascination that poor Charlie's empty sleeve had for her, nor the great compassion his pale face and his pitiful efforts to write with his left hand raised in her heart. But he aroused far more interest in her mind than all the "other boys" put together. Rosie argued the matter, but at last consented. A dirty, ragged sweetheart was perhaps after all better than none. "Besides it doesn't matter much," she concluded practically. "'Cause it's only to tease you about, and cancel your names." She added cautiously that Lizzie had better not tell anybody else, it would be a secret between them, thus loyally saving her friend from public disgrace.
Elizabeth consented, and Rosie wrote Elizabeth Jarvis Gordon and Charles Henry Peters on her slate and performed the necessary ceremony. It turned out quite satisfactorily, and Rosie's next duty was to chant the usual incantation over the buttons of her friend's pinafore:
"Rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief,
Doctor, lawyer, merchant, chief."
There were just eleven buttons, which brought the ominous result, "beggar man." Rosie gave herself up to renewed dismay, but Elizabeth grew more joyful every moment. It would be very romantic to marry a beggar man, and likely poor Charlie would have to be one, seeing he was so sick and had only one arm. It would be just like the story in the Chronicle, of the lovely Lady Evelina, who ran away with the coachman, and he turned out a count! She accordingly set to work at her slate, and drew a picture of herself riding up in all her grandeur of velvet-cloak, armor, and spear to rescue a ragged, one-armed boy from an enemy's camp. Elizabeth's instincts were right, the touch of self-sacrifice she dimly divined was necessary to make an act of perfect heroism.
For the next few days Rosie lived in distress, lest Elizabeth's unfortunate love affair became public and both she and her chum be disgraced. But, before disaster could descend, Elizabeth's clouded destiny changed to one of dazzling splendor in the most miraculous way.
One morning there appeared in school, with Noah Clegg, Junior, a new boy; a wonderfully handsome boy, in a black velvet suit and broad white collar, altogether such a magnificent creature as had never before been seen in Forest Glen.
He had not been in school ten minutes before everybody knew all about him, Hannah Clegg proudly giving the information. He was from Cheemaun. His name was Horace Oliver, and his father was a rich lumberman. The Cleggs had supplied Mrs. Oliver with fresh butter and eggs for years, and Hannah herself had been at their house, which was a very magnificent mansion on the hill overlooking the lake. He had a sister older than himself, whose name was Madeline, and she had four silk dresses besides dozens of other kinds. And this Horace had been sick, so when Hannah's father and mother went into town with the butter and eggs on Saturday they had brought him back with them to stay on the farm and drink plenty of milk until he should get strong again.
The new boy was the center of interest during the morning. The girls were all admiration, and the Cleggs rose in popular favor, to be the envied of all the school. Enthusiasm amongst the boys was much milder. John Gordon and Charles Stuart MacAllister were scarcely enthusiastic at all. John privately informed his friend that any fellow of twelve—and he must be that if he wasn't thirteen—who would wear a white collar and velvet rig-up like that to school must be a baa-lamb, and ought to stay home and sit on his mother's knee. The Pretender discovered, to their further disgust, that the stranger could play a piano. This innocent accomplishment raised a strange feeling of irritation in the breast of Charles Stuart. He mentally resolved to watch the new boy, and if he showed signs of becoming too popular he would take him out behind the woodshed and settle him.