"I could listen to you all night," returned Bo, dreamily.
"Do you read--do you have books?" inquired Helen, suddenly.
"Yes, I read tolerable well; a good deal better than I talk or write," he replied. "I went to school till I was fifteen. Always hated study, but liked to read. Years ago an old friend of mine down here at Pine--Widow Cass--she gave me a lot of old books. An' I packed them up here. Winter's the time I read."
Conversation lagged after that, except for desultory remarks, and presently Dale bade the girls good night and left them. Helen watched his tall form vanish in the gloom under the pines, and after he had disappeared she still stared.
"Nell!" called Bo, shrilly. "I've called you three times. I want to go to bed."
"Oh! I--I was thinking," rejoined Helen, half embarrassed, half wondering at herself. "I didn't hear you."
"I should smile you didn't," retorted Bo. "Wish you could just have seen your eyes. Nell, do you want me to tell you something?
"Why--yes," said Helen, rather feebly. She did not at all, when Bo talked like that.
"You're going to fall in love with that wild hunter," declared Bo in a voice that rang like a bell.
Helen was not only amazed, but enraged. She caught her breath preparatory to giving this incorrigible sister a piece of her mind. Bo went calmly on.
"I can feel it in my bones."
"Bo, you're a little fool--a sentimental, romancing, gushy little fool!" retorted Helen. "All you seem to hold in your head is some rot about love. To hear you talk one would think there's nothing else in the world but love."
Bo's eyes were bright, shrewd, affectionate, and laughing as she bent their steady gaze upon Helen.
"Nell, that's just it. There IS nothing else!"