Father was impressed—­plainly impressed; but not at all in the way I had hoped he would be.  He gave me a swift, sharp glance; then looked straight at Mother.

“Humph!  Paul Mayhew!  Yes, I know him,” he said grimly.  “And I’m dreading the time when he comes into college next year.”

“You mean—­” Mother hesitated and stopped.

“I mean I don’t like the company he keeps—­already,” nodded Father.

“Then you don’t think that Mary Marie—­” Mother hesitated again, and glanced at me.

“Certainly not,” said Father decidedly.

I knew then, of course, that he meant I couldn’t go on the sleigh-ride, even though he hadn’t said the words right out.  I forgot all about being casual and indifferent and matter-of-course then.  I thought only of showing them how absolutely necessary it was for them to let me go on that sleigh-ride, unless they wanted my life forever-more hopelessly blighted.

I explained carefully how he was the handsomest, most popular boy in school, and how all the girls were just crazy to be asked to go anywhere with him; and I argued what if Father had seen him with boys he did not like—­then that was all the more reason why nice girls like me, when he asked them, should go with him, so as to keep him away from the bad boys!  And I told them, that this was the first and last, and only sleigh-ride of the school that year; and I said I’d be heart-broken, just heart-broken, if they did not let me go.  And I reminded them again that he was the very handsomest, most popular boy in school; and that there wasn’t a girl I knew who wouldn’t be crazy to be in my shoes.

Then I stopped, all out of breath, and I can imagine just how pleading and palpitating I looked.

I thought Father was going to refuse right away, but I saw the glance that Mother threw him—­the glance that said, “Let me attend to this, dear.”  I’d seen that glance before, several times, and I knew just what it meant; so I wasn’t surprised to see Father shrug his shoulders and turn away as Mother said to me: 

“Very well, dear.  Ill think it over and let you know to-night.”

But I was surprised that night to have Mother say I could go, for I’d about given up hope, after all that talk at the breakfast-table.  And she said something else that surprised me, too.  She said she’d like to know Paul Mayhew herself; that she always wanted to know the friends of her little girl.  And she told me to ask him to call the next evening and play checkers or chess with me.

Happy?  I could scarcely contain myself for joy.  And when the next evening came bringing Paul, and Mother, all prettily dressed as if he were really truly company, came into the room and talked so beautifully to him, I was even more entranced.  To be sure, it did bother me a little that Paul laughed so much, and so loudly, and that he couldn’t seem to find anything to talk about only himself, and what he was doing, and what he was going to do.  Some way, he had never seemed like that at school.  And I was afraid Mother wouldn’t like that.