“Oh, no, David!” returned Polly quietly; “but I think you’re a little bit foolish.”

His cheeks flushed angrily.  “Oh, foolish, is it!  Pray, what have I done?”

“M—­m, not so very much, except to ignore me, when we’ve always been such good friends.”

“It’s your own fault!” David’s temper was getting the mastery.  “Going round with another boy and not paying me any attention at all!”

“Don’t let’s quarrel, David!  I suppose you mean Doodles, and it does seem so silly for you to be jealous of that little boy!”

“You played all his accompaniments, and you didn’t play for me,” said David in an aggrieved tone.

“He asked me, and you didn’t.  You know he hasn’t had a piano very long and can’t play as you can.  But I would have gladly played for you if I had known you wanted me.”

The boy said nothing, and Polly resumed.

“You act as if I belonged to you and mustn’t look at another boy.”

“You do belong to me!” he declared.

“Since when?” laughed Polly.

“Since the first day I saw you,” replied David doggedly.

“Oh!” she smiled.  “I never knew it!  But I don’t make a fuss because you call on Patricia or go round with Leonora.”

“Of course you don’t!  You wouldn’t mind if I went with forty girls!  You don’t care a rap for me.”  His face was gloomy.

“Oh, David! what do you want me to do?—­hang round you all the time and say, ’David, I love you!  David, it’s true!  David, I’ll love you all my life through’?”

“Go on!” he said fiercely, “make all the fun you like!  It is fun to you, but with me it’s life or death!”

“David!”

“You know I never cared for any other girl!  You know you are my world!  And yet you deliberately make fun of me!”

Polly’s dimples vanished.  “No, David, I am not making fun of you, but only of your foolishness—­”

“Oh, yes, I suppose it’s foolish for me to love you as I do when you don’t care a straw—­”

“Wait! wait!” she interrupted.  “I don’t mean that at all, and you know it!  But for a great, tall fellow like you to be so unreasonably jealous of a little ten-year-old does seem absurd.  I love Doodles, of course; everybody does.  But, David, you ought to know that’s all there is to it.”

“He says he’s going to marry you!”

Polly laughed outright.  “I never heard anything about it before, so I guess I wouldn’t let it worry me, David.”  She chuckled.  “Whatever made him say that!  He’s a funny little chap!”

“Will you marry me?” David asked abruptly.

Polly’s dimples came and went.  “Do you mean right off?” she queried soberly.  “I rather want to go to school a little longer.”

“There you are again!” he grumbled.  “You can’t take anything in earnest!  I may as well go home!”

“But, David, the idea of asking me such a question!  And I only thirteen!  Can’t you see how silly it is?”