"He is brave as a lion," she said, with twelve-year-old enthusiasm. "Why, when Mr. Mills' big house burned down he went up a ladder to the third story, which hadn't caught fire yet, and went all through the building until he had found and brought out three servants who were unconscious from the smoke. Then he even went back for the dog, and saved him." "That was good work," I responded, rather vacantly. "And then," she went on, "when the big, new schoolhouse caught fire he happened to be right there to notice it from the outside, and after getting all the children out safely he entered the building at the head of his fire company and extinguished the fire. He went right into the blazing basement with a fire extinguisher and put it out himself. None of the rest wanted to go in, either." I grunted my approval. I had never liked him, but evidently had misjudged him. The child continued: "But the bravest thing he did was when the seminary caught fire at night. He was asleep when the alarm sounded and he rushed to the fire half clothed. The whole lower story was afire, and above were the dormitories with over a hundred girls fast asleep; but he went up, right through the flames coming from the windows, and wakened everybody. Then he pulled up ladders with a rope, and helped the girls down. He was the last to come out, and just in time, for the walls fell in a moment later." "You have a fine brother," I responded, joining the girl in her enthusiasm, and willing to do him justice. "I never thought he had courage at all, but he certainly has proved it." "Oh, he has," she rejoined. And then, with sisterly single-mindedness, she gave me this: "He isn't afraid of you any more, and says he is going to thrash you." "Me--why?" I asked in amazement. "What for?" "Oh, papa says the same, too. They say that a man of your age ought to be thrashed for talking to a girl of twelve. But I don't see why. I like to talk to _you_." The disparity in our ages had not influenced me when younger, and as it was growing less each day that we lived I had not given it a thought. But this new attitude of her father and brother compelled me to, and in helpless anger and chagrin--for I was either the same bad boy of the village, or, still worse, a man playing the boy--I forswore her society and went back to my third term at the academy, resolved not to seek her again until she was of age. And with me on the train, as it pulled out of town, was George Morton, bound for college, but we did not speak.