Much discomfited, Mac gave poor Keats a fling, and leaning on both elbows tried to hide his face; for it had reddened like that of a modest girl when teased about her lover.
"You needn't look so guilty; it is no sin to write poetry," said Rose, amused at his confusion.
"It's a sin to call that rubbish poetry," muttered Mac, with great scorn.
"It is a greater sin to tell a fib, and say you never write it."
"Reading so much sets one thinking about such things, and every fellow scribbles a little jingle when he is lazy or in love, you know," explained Mac, looking very guilty.
Rose could not quite understand the change she saw in him, till his last words suggested a cause which she knew by experience was apt to inspire young men. Leaning forward again, she asked solemnly, though her eyes danced with fun,—
"Mac, are you in love?"
"Do I look like it?" and he sat up with such an injured and indignant face, that she apologized at once; for he certainly did not look lover-like with hay-seed in his hair, several lively crickets playing leap-frog over his back, and a pair of long legs stretching from tree to hay-cock.
"No, you don't; and I humbly beg your pardon for making such an unwarrantable insinuation. It merely occurred to me that the general upliftedness I observe
