“How do you do!” Mr. Wilde said, as he bowed graciously. “My name is Madison Wilde, young lady! Who, may I ask, are you?”
She laughed gayly at Mr. Wilde’s mock gallantry, and her voice echoed like a silver bell ringing throughout the forest.
“Why—I’m a girl called Lola!”
CHAPTER X—ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD
“So you’re Lola, are you, and not some ephemeral wood-sprite that disappears with the advent of dawn? I feel disappointed that you cannot truthfully tell me your home is the trunk of the tree and that you sip the nectar from the flowers as your sole diet. Now that you’re really a human being we will have to make the best of it. I suppose you live near here?”
She pointed a slim brown finger southward where a column of smoke was curling high above the clump of evergreen pines and tall straight cedars beyond.
“I wonder,” she said, showing two rows of even white teeth, “if you gentlemen would take supper with us?” Manifestly, this was inclusive of all.
With all her feminine sweetness there was nothing coy about her nor her question. She spoke simply but with an amazing frankness, accentuated by the soft deep tones in her voice. A typical tomboy, Mr. Wilde thought.
Westy and Rip liked her at once and the fact that she included them as gentlemen had a marked effect upon this consideration.
“Now, that’s kind of you,” Mr. Wilde answered, “but we are all pretty tired to-night. We wouldn’t make very sociable guests I’m afraid. Besides, the hour is quite late now and for four men to presume upon your mother’s kind hospitality would be too much of a good thing.”