"To a girl," slyly added one of the boys, who had wished to borrow
the red sled, and had been politely refused because Jill wanted it.

"He's the nicest boy in the world, for he never gets mad," said the
timid young lady, recalling the many times Jack had shielded her
from the terrors which beset her path to school, in the shape of
cows, dogs, and boys who made faces and called her "'Fraid-cat."

"He doesn't dare to get mad with Jill, for she'd take his head off in
two minutes if he did," growled Joe Flint, still smarting from the
rebuke Jill had given him for robbing the little ones of their safe
coast because he fancied it.

"She wouldn't! she's a dear! _You_ needn't sniff at her because she
is poor. She's ever so much brighter than you are, or she wouldn't
always be at the head of your class, old Joe," cried the girls,
standing by their friend with a unanimity which proved what a
favorite she was.

Joe subsided with as scornful a curl to his nose as its chilly state
permitted, and Merry Grant introduced a subject of general interest
by asking abruptly,--

"Who is going to the candy-scrape to-night?"

"All of us. Frank invited the whole set, and we shall have a tip-top
time. We always do at the Minots'," cried Sue, the timid trembler.

"Jack said there was a barrel of molasses in the house, so there