Page:George Weston--The apple-tree girl.djvu/138

 lotte, and second because she was a celebrity, and third, without a doubt in the world, because she was a new experience to him and acted like a tonic to his system.

Because, when all is said and done, it would be unfair to Charlotte if you received the idea that she was nothing except a scheming little thing who went around seeking whom she might devour. Outside of her doing of the Three Famous Sums, she was an unusually sweet and wholesome little body, with deeply tender eyes, expressive eyebrows and a bashful manner, but, oh, so eager to live, so sincerely in love with life! It was those qualities of naïveté and enthusiasm and sincerity which drew Perry Graham's thoughts more and more often to the girl who had learned her first profound lesson of life from the story of Micah's apple tree.

The girls he had known before had been brought up in familiarity with