“What a fright I am!” she mused.

“But you are the best girl in the world.”

“Don’t waste your pretty talk on me now.  I can’t enjoy it—­my nose aches so.  I’d rather you’d tell me when—­when it is easier for you to say it.”

“We don’t see each other very often.”

“If you will come out on this road next Saturday afternoon I will ride until I find you and then we can have another talk.”

“All right.  I’ll be here at four-thirty and I’ll be thinking about it every day until then.”

“My nose feels better now,” she said presently and added:  “You might tell me a little more if you want to.”

“I love you even when you have ceased to be beautiful,” I said with the ardor of the young.

“That is grand!  You know old age will sting us by and by, Bart,” she answered with a sigh and in a tone of womanly wisdom.

We were nearing the village.  She wiped the mud from her prodigious nose and I wet her handkerchief in a pool of water and helped her to wash it.  Soon we saw two men approaching us in the road.  In a moment I observed that one was Mr. Horace Dunkelberg; the other a stranger and a remarkably handsome young man he was, about twenty-two years of age and dressed in the height of fashion.  I remember so well his tall, athletic figure, his gray eyes, his small dark mustache and his admirable manners.  Both were appalled at the look of Sally.

“Why, girl, what has happened to you?” her father asked.

Then I saw what a playful soul was Sally’s.  The girl was a born actress.

“Been riding in the country,” said she.  “Is this Mr. Latour?”

“This is Mr. Latour, Sally,” said her father.

They shook hands.

“I am glad to see you,” said the stranger.

“They say I am worth seeing,” said Sally.  “This is my friend, Mr. Baynes.  When you are tired of seeing me, look at him.”

I shook the hand he offered me.

“Of course, we can’t all be good looking,” Sally remarked with a sigh, as if her misfortune were permanent.

Mr. Horace Dunkelberg and I laughed heartily—­for I had told him in a whisper what had happened to Sally—­while Mr. Latour looked a little embarrassed.

“My face is not beautiful, but they say that I have a good heart,” Sally assured the stranger.

They started on.  I excused myself and took a trail through the woods to another road.  Just there, with Sally waving her hand to me as I stood for a moment in the edge of the woods, the curtain falls on this highly romantic period of my life.

Uncle Peabody came for me that evening.  It was about the middle of the next week that I received this letter from Sally: