But she took it, shook it, gave an easy twist, and the maddening lid--loosened, of course, by Johnny's exertions--came off! Edith shrieked with joy; but Johnny, though mortified, was immensely relieved. They sat down on a sloping rock, and talked bait, and the grave and spectacled Johnny became his old self, scolding Edith for talking so loudly. "Girls," he said, "are _born_ not fishermen!" Then they waded out into the stream, and began to cast. It was broad daylight by this time, and the woods were filling with netted sunbeams; the water whispered and chuckled. "Pretty nice?" Johnny said, in a low voice; and Edith, all her grumpiness flown, said: "You bet it is!" Then, as an afterthought, she called back, "But Eleanor is the limit!" Johnny, forgetting his gratitude to Eleanor, said, savagely: "_Keep quiet!_ You scared him off! Gosh! girls are awful." So Edith kept quiet, and he wandered up the stream, and she wandered down the stream, and they fished, and they fished--and they never caught a thing. "I had _one_ bite," Johnny said when, at about eleven, fiercely hungry, they met on the bank where they had left their lunch basket; "but you burst out about Eleanor, and drove him off. Girls simply _can't_ fish." Edith was contrite--but doubted the bite. Then they sat down on a mossy rock, and ate stacks of sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs, and watched the water, and talked, talked, talked. At least Edith talked--mostly about Maurice. Johnny lit his pipe, puffed once or twice, then let it go out and sat staring into the green wall of the woods on the other side of the brook. Then, suddenly, quietly, he began to speak.... "I want to say something." "The mosquitoes here are awful!" Edith said, nervously; "don't you think we'd better go home?" "Look here, Edith; you've got to be half decent to me--unless, of course, you've soured on me? If you have, I'll shut up." "Johnny, don't be an idiot! 'Course I haven't soured on you. You're the oldest friend I've got. Older than Maurice, even." "Well, I guess I am an older friend than Maurice! But lately you've treated me like a dog. You skulk round to keep from being by ourselves. You never give me a chance to open my head to you--" "Johnny, that's perfectly absurd! I've had to look after Eleanor--" "Eleanor _nothing_! It's me you want to shake." "I do _not_ want to shake you! I'm just busy." "Edith, I care a lot about you. I don't care much for girls, as a rule. But you're not girly. And every time I try to talk to you, you sidestep me." "Now, Johnny--" "But I'm going to tell you, all the same." He made a clutch at the sopping-wet hem of her skirt. "I _will_ say it! I care an awful lot about you. I'm not a boy. I want to marry you." There was a dead silence; then Edith said, despairingly, "Oh, Johnny, how perfectly horrid you are!" He gasped. "You simply spoil everything with this sort of ... of ... of talk." "You mean you don't like me?" His face twitched.