“I like you, Penrod!” she said, in an odd way, and, whatever else there may have been in her manner, there certainly was no shyness. “Oh, Bugs!” This repetition may have lacked gallantry, but it was uttered in no very decided tone. Penrod was shaken. “Yes, I do!” She stepped closer to him, smiling. “Your hair is ever so pretty.” Sailors' parrots swear like mariners, they say; and gay mothers ought to realize that all children are imitative, for, as the precocious Fanchon leaned toward Penrod, the manner in which she looked into his eyes might have made a thoughtful observer wonder where she had learned her pretty ways. Penrod was even more confused than he had been by her previous mysteries: but his confusion was of a distinctly pleasant and alluring nature: he wanted more of it. Looking intentionally into another person's eyes is an act unknown to childhood; and Penrod's discovery that it could be done was sensational. He had never thought of looking into the eyes of Marjorie Jones. Despite all anguish, contumely, tar, and Maurice Levy, he still secretly thought of Marjorie, with pathetic constancy, as his “beau”--though that is not how he would have spelled it. Marjorie was beautiful; her curls were long and the colour of amber; her nose was straight and her freckles were honest; she was much prettier than this accomplished visitor. But beauty is not all. “I do!” breathed Fanchon, softly. She seemed to him a fairy creature from some rosier world than this. So humble is the human heart, it glorifies and makes glamorous almost any poor thing that says to it: “I like you!” Penrod was enslaved. He swallowed, coughed, scratched the back of his neck, and said, disjointedly: “Well--I don't care if you want to. I just as soon.” “We'll dance together,” said Fanchon, “at your party.” “I guess so. I just as soon.” “Don't you want to, Penrod?” “Well, I'm willing to.” “No. Say you WANT to!” “Well----” He used his toe as a gimlet, boring into the ground, his wide open eyes staring with intense vacancy at a button on his sleeve. His mother appeared upon the porch in departure, calling farewells over her shoulder to Mrs. Gelbraith, who stood in the doorway. “Say it!” whispered Fanchon. “Well, I just as SOON.” She seemed satisfied. CHAPTER XXX THE BIRTHDAY PARTY A dancing floor had been laid upon a platform in the yard, when Mrs. Schofield and her son arrived at their own abode; and a white and scarlet striped canopy was in process of erection overhead, to shelter the dancers from the sun. Workmen were busy everywhere under the direction of Margaret, and the smitten heart of Penrod began to beat rapidly. All this was for him; he was Twelve!