DAD


Keith's chin was still high and his gaze still straight ahead when he
reached the foot of Harrington Hill. Perhaps that explained why he did
not see the two young misses on the fence by the side of the road
until a derisively gleeful shout called his attention to their
presence.

"Well, Keith Burton, I should like to know if you're blind!"
challenged a merry voice.

The boy turned with a start so violent that the girls giggled again
gleefully. "Dear, dear, did we scare him? We're so sorry!"

The boy flushed painfully. Keith did not like girls--that is, he SAID
he did not like them. They made him conscious of his hands and feet,
and stiffened his tongue so that it would not obey his will. The
prettier the girls were, the more acute was his discomfiture.
Particularly, therefore, did he dislike these two girls--they were the
prettiest of the lot. They were Mazie Sanborn and her friend Dorothy
Parkman.

Mazie was the daughter of the town's richest manufacturer, and Dorothy
was her cousin from Chicago, who made such long visits to her Eastern
relatives that it seemed sometimes almost as if she were as much of a
Hinsdale girl as was Mazie herself.

To-day Mazie's blue eyes and Dorothy's brown ones were full of
mischief.