"Or get married, my sweet girl, though they say death is better than torture," replied Moore, approaching the schoolmistress. "Do you know it cost me two shillings to get a talk with you?"
Bessie smiled and finished a pen with exquisite care.
"Talk is cheap," she observed, carelessly.
"Whoever said that never called at your school, Bessie Dyke," said Moore, perching himself upon her desk. "Turn your face a bit the other way, if you please."
As he spoke he took the girl's round chin in his hands and moved her head until only a side view of her pretty face could be obtained from his post of vantage.
"Do you like my profile so much, Tom?" she asked, submitting docilely to his direction.
"It's not that, Bessie," answered Moore, "it's because I can't stand two such eyes at once. Now there is but one of them looking at me. And such an eye! My heart's jumping under my jacket like a tethered bullfrog with the glance of it. Ah, Bessie, there is only one in the wide world like it."
"And where is that?" asked the girl, a shade of jealousy perceptible in her inquiry.
"Just around the bend of your nose, mavourneen," laughed Moore. "Filled with melted moonshine are both of them. Sure, one soft look from those eyes would make a cocked hat out of starlight."
"Would it?" murmured Bessie, charmed in spite of herself. "Do you really mean all you say?"