“No, that was some other little girl,” said Vera firmly. “You never looked at me, and I”—she laughed, and then frowned at him reproachfully—“I thought you were magnificent! I used to have your pictures in baseball clothes pinned all around my looking glass, and whenever you made a base hit, I’d shout and shout—and you’d never look at me! And one day—” she stopped, and as though appalled by the memory, clasped her hands. “Oh, it was awful!” she exclaimed; “one day a foul ball hit the fence, and I jumped down and threw it to you, and you said, Thank you, sis! And I,” she cried, “thought I was a young lady!”
“Oh! I couldn’t have said that,” protested Winthrop, “maybe I said sister.”
“No,” declared Vera energetically shaking her head, “not sister, sis. And you never did look at me; and I used to drive past your house every day. We lived only a mile below you.”
“Where?” asked Winthrop.
“On the lake road from Syracuse,” said Vera. “Don’t you remember the farm a mile below yours—the one with the red barn right on the road? Yes, you do,” she insisted, “the cows were always looking over the fence right into the road.”
“Of course!” exclaimed Winthrop delightedly. “Was that your house?”
“Oh, no,” protested Vera, “ours was the little cottage on the other side—”
“With poplars round it?” demanded Winthrop.
“That’s it!” cried Vera triumphantly, “with poplars round it.”
“Why, I know that house well. We boys used to call it the haunted house.”