She stamped her foot. "I tell you I'm the teacher. It is necessary I
should be there."

"You a schoolmarm!" he repeated, in surprise. "How old are you?"

Her dress was scarcely below her shoe tops. She still had the slimness
of immature girlhood, the adorable shy daring of some uncaptured wood
nymph.

"Does that matter to you, sir?"

"How old?" he reiterated.

"Going-on-eighteen," she answered--not because she wanted to, but
because somehow she must. There was something compelling about this
man's will. She would have resisted it had she not wanted to gain her
point about going home.

"So you teach the kids their A B C's, do you? And you just out of them
yourself! How many scholars have you?"

"Fourteen."

"And they all love teacher, of course. Would you take me for a scholar,
Miss Going-On-Eighteen?"

"No!" she flamed.

"You'd find me right teachable. And I would promise to love you, too."