He broke in with a most disarming smile.

"Oh, please," he said. "I don't deserve that--anyhow. I'm awfully sorry
about the skirt. I hope you'll let me bear the cost of the damage. I've
got into hot water all round. Nobody will believe I'm seriously sorry,
though it's a fact for all that. Don't be hard on me, Molly, I say!"

There was a note of genuine pleading in the last words that induced her
to relent a little.

"Oh, well, I'll forgive you for the skirt," she said. "I suppose boys
can't help being mischievous, though you are nearly old enough to know
better."

She looked at him as she said it. His face was comically penitent.
Somehow she could not quarrel with the lurking smile in his merry eyes.
He was certainly a boy. He would never be anything else. But Molly did
not realise this, and she was still too young herself to have
appreciated the gift of perpetual youth had she been aware of its
existence.

"That's right!" said Charlie cheerily. "And perhaps"--he spoke
cautiously, with a half-deprecatory glance at her bright
face--"perhaps--in time, you know--you will be able to forgive me for
something else as well."

"I think the less we say about that the better," remarked Molly, tilting
her chin a little.