"Well, why don't you say something? Why don't you apologize?" demanded
Mazie.

'"Pol--pologize? What for?" In his embarrassed misery Keith resorted
to bravado in voice and manner.

"Why, for passing us by in that impertinent fashion," returned Mazie
loftily. "Do you think that is the way ladies should be treated?"
(Mazie was thirteen and Dorothy fourteen.) "The idea!"

For a minute Keith stared helplessly, shifting from one foot to the
other. Then, with an inarticulate grunt, he turned away.

But Mazie was not to be so easily thwarted. With a mere flit of her
hand she tossed aside a score of years, and became instantly nothing
more than a wheedling little girl coaxing a playmate.

"Aw, Keithie, don't get mad! I was only fooling. Say, tell me, HAVE
you been up to Uncle Joe Harrington's?"

Because Mazie had caught his arm and now held it tightly, the boy
perforce came to a stop.

"Well, what if I have?" he resorted to bravado again.

"And is he blind, honestly?" Mazie's voice became hushed and
awestruck.

"Uh-huh." The boy nodded his head with elaborate unconcern, but he