It was not time, yet, he deemed, to tell this girl how much that picture had been to him for so many months past.
He hurried on a little precipitately.

"You see, I had heard about this girl a lot; and I liked--what I heard." "You mean--you didn't know her--at the first ?" Billy's eyes were surprised.

Billy had supposed that Arkwright had always known Alice Greggory.
"No, I didn't know the girl--till afterwards.

Before that I was always dreaming and wondering what she would be like." "Oh!" Billy subsided into her chair, still with the puzzled questioning in her eyes.
"Then I met her." "Yes ?" "And she was everything and more than I had pictured her." "And you fell in love at once ?" Billy's voice had grown confident again.
"Oh, I was already in love," sighed Arkwright.

"I simply sank deeper." "Oh-h!" breathed Billy, sympathetically.