It was the first time she had announced this rather radical plan of hers, so it was no especial wonder that, for the moment, it took Scott's breath away. Not that he objected especially, however. It was only the novelty of the idea that staggered him. To his slowly-developing masculine mind, it never had occurred that he and Catie could not go on for ever, just chums and playmates and, now and then, lusty foes, without complicating their relations by more formal, final ties. He rallied swiftly, however. "Well, you'll have to marry a minister, then," he told her sturdily. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. "And wear shabby clothes and a bad bonnet, like Mrs. Platt, and have to go to all the funerals in town! How horrid! Oh, Scott, do be some other kind of a man. A minister's wife can't dance anything but the Virginia reel, nor play anything more than muggins. Why can't you be a dentist, if you won't keep a store?" For the once, Scott showed himself dominant, aggressive. "Because I'd rather preach. It's what all my people have always done." Then Catie made her blunder. "What about your father?" she asked, and her voice was taunting. Scott forgot his holy heritage and turned upon her swiftly. "Shut up!" he bade her curtly, and her cheek tingled under the blow he dealt her. It was the first time in his life that Scott had turned upon her with decision. Moreover, perchance it would have been better for him, had it not been the last. For three days afterward, the subject was as a sealed book between them. Then Catie broke the seals, and gingerly. "I have been thinking about your being a minister," she told him, as she dropped into step beside him, on the way to school. "Of course, you were very rude to treat me the way you did, the other day; and I hope you are sorry." Scott shut his teeth, although he nodded shortly. He had not enjoyed the three-day frost between himself and Catie; but he was sure that, in the final end, he had been in the right of it, even if he had been a little unceremonious in pressing the matter home on her attention. Moreover, his will had triumphed; Catie had been the one, not he, to break the silence. The casualness of her "Hullo!" that morning, had not deceived him in the least. He was perfectly well aware that she had lain in wait for his passing, her eye glued to the crack of the front-window curtains. The victory was his. He could afford to yield the minor point concerning manners, when he stood so firmly entrenched upon that other point which concerned the ministry. "Of course," he conceded guardedly; "I know I was beastly when I hit a girl." "Yes." Catie's accent was uncompromising. "It was a disgrace to you. I wonder you can look me in the face. If it had been any other boy, I never would have spoken to him again as long as I lived." "Really?" To her extreme disgust, Scott seemed to take her utterances merely as matter for scientific investigation. "Of course not," she said impatiently.