Tabitha at Ivy Hall, page 48 by Ruth Alberta Brown
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nifesting any interest in the subject she answered briefly, "Lynne Maximilian."
The man started as if he could not believe his ears, and then with an almost audible chuckle of amusement, he descended the steps and strode rapidly up the path toward the town.
CHAPTER VII
THE NEW BOY
There was a new boy at school.
In this little town with its ever changing population of miners and fortune seekers, the advent of a stranger as a usual thing caused little if any excitement. But with this boy it was different, though the children could not have explained wherein he was unlike themselves. It could not be his clothes, for Jimmy Gates, the hotel-keeper's son, was the best-dressed boy in town; it could not be his appearance, for though he was undoubtedly good-looking, he did not begin to be as handsome as Herman Richards; it could not be the place where he lived, for the Carson house was the largest and most attractive in town. And yet there was something about him that won him a ready welcome wherever he went.
Tabitha was fairly hypnotized. She could not keep her eyes off him whenever the opportunity to look in his direction came to her, which fortunately was not often, as she sat in the front seat of the outside row, while his desk was towards the rear of the room in the same row, and they were both in nearly all the same classes, though he was obviously some two or three years older than she. However, he was further advanced in arithmetic, and recited in a different class, so she could watch him during that lesson while he was working at the blackboard, or sitting on the recitation bench in front of the whole school. He had the loveliest red-brown curls and big, red-brown eyes with long, heavy lashes! To be sure, his face was freckled, but he was always laughing and one forgot the freckles in watching his flashing white teeth or the dimples that came and went in his round cheeks.
Tabitha did not know that he ha