Page:George Weston--The apple-tree girl.djvu/153

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THE APPLE TREE GIRL

"But if I won this," she thought, "I believe I'd lose everything else—and—and—well, it isn't worth it; that's all!"

So, heeding at last the voice of Conscience, she told him how she had knocked him down with the golf ball, and gave him so much food for thought that he was still digesting it in mingled surprise and admiration when he took Charlotte to the station and walked up and down the platform with her while they waited for the train.

"You're a great little girl; do you know it?" he asked.

Charlotte buried her face in the roses again, but said nothing.

"One thing I can't understand, though, is why you did it. Was it just for fun?"

"N-no," she said. "It—it was a sum."

"A sum?" he asked in astonishment. "What do you mean—a sum?

She thought it over while they walked

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